On This Day: Feb 21

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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 23 posts previously published on February 21st

  • 2024
  • 2020
    • On S3 of ENT (my first time), and people complaining about how dark DIS is must be forgetting the millions dead on Earth, Archer’s obsession leading to psychological torture, organ farming, and piracy, T’Pol’s drug addiction, and who knows what else. Not a shiny happy show! 🖖 ➡
    • Difficult Listening Hour 2020.02.20 Week five of my unplanned, unrehearsed, seat-of-the-pants goofing around. ➡
    • On This Day: Feb 21 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from February 21 ➡
    • 📚 eleven of 2020: The Little Animals by Sarah Tolmie ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee Unlike most or all of the other nominees, this was more historical fiction with a thread of magical realism—not a bad thing, though, as it’s a neat work that I very much enjoyed. ➡
  • 2019
    • 🖖 #StarTrekDiscovery S02E06: 90% strong episode, but that last 10%…I have serious concerns with the Discovery’s actions in this episode. Pike did far more than bend General Order 1. Sigh. Mixed feelings tonight. Oh, and (unsurprisingly) my theory about Saru was wrong after all. ➡
    • (2/2) Or, presented in a slightly different format (that works well for this, but would take far too many pages for the full listing), my Star Trek library, sorted by ©/release date. 📚 🖖 ➡
    • (1/2) Our home library currently stands at 2,167 books. Should you be curious and/or bored enough, here’s a link to a listing, sortable by title, author, or a couple other less-useful categories. 📚 ➡
    • Book eighteen of 2019: The Patrian Transgression, by Simon Hawke. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 📚 (Trek novels are my “fluffy comfort food” reading. With few exceptions, I enjoy them all, good and bad, so even mini-reviews are somewhat pointless. You understand, I’m sure. LLAP 🖖) ➡
  • 2017
    • I also got new smut from @ironcircus: Yes, Roya and My Monster Boyfriend. Supporting small-press publishers of NSFW material (at which Prairie rolls her eyes in amusement). ➡
    • Prairie and I got each other shirts! We each now have both #shepersisted and #roguenasa shirts to wear at marches, protests, or just going to the grocery store in this small town on the red side of the state (I’m more likely to do that last one…probably while wearing my kilt). ➡
  • 2016
    • Just feeling a little prickly this evening. (52/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Why, yes universe – a headache was just what I needed on a Friday afternoon. How thoughtful of you! ➡
  • 2009
  • 2007
    • Field Guide to Seattle Viaduct Debate Can't keep all the various options or points of view on Seattle's ongoing 'what do we do about the Viaduct' battle straight? Here's a handy-dandy guide to the various species involved, thanks to SLOG reader 'Golob'. ➡
  • 2005
    • Mature? Me? Naaahhh… The thing about seeing a flock of birds camped out on a publicly accessible dock is that one is faced with the completely immature and totally insurmountable desire to go running down the dock and into the flock. ➡
    • Gorgeous weekend We're back! This was a great weekend — incredibly gorgeous weather. Rather bizarrely for February in Washington, we got clear blue skies, temperatures in the mid-60's, and just a hint of breeze along the beach. ➡
  • 2004
    • Well-Designed Weblogs Looking for some design inspiration? Good pointers to quite a few very impressively designed sites at Well Designed Weblogs Part One and Part Two. And no, I'm not on the list. ;) ➡
    • Help send flowers to the newlyweds Another nice project springing up over the past few days — Flowers for Al and Don. ➡
  • 2002
    • The pope said what? In November, the frail and ailing Pontiff sent his first email, a message sent to his Bishops in Oceania in lieu of what would be a taxing visit. 'This new Internet is a Blessing from the Lord,' the Pope said through an interpreter, 'but Jesus Motherfarking Christ, these annoying-ass pop-up ads are farking pissing me off.' ➡
    • The return of Spudnuts I vas born in a part of Belarus where people what have bluejeans cannot for be to using them becausk they hef no bones. Very sad. Very, very sad. Yes. Funny. But also... SAD. ➡
  • 2001
    • The cam is back One of the side benefits to the new 'puter is that as I've decided to stick mostly to OS 9 on this box, it allows me to resurrect some features of this site that had been on hold for a while. ➡
    • Snoogans Back a while ago, Kevin Smith and company were creating an animated show based on the characters from his film Clerks. Six episodes were made, but only two were ever broadcast (neither of which I ever saw). ➡
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📚 eleven of 2020: The Little Animals by Sarah Tolmie ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee

Unlike most or all of the other nominees, this was more historical fiction with a thread of magical realism—not a bad thing, though, as it’s a neat work that I very much enjoyed.

Be Angry, Elizabeth

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From Cosmopolitan: I WANT an Angry Woman as My President, Actually:

Warren’s anger is a great thing. She’s not using it to fight for herself. She’s fighting for the less privileged, a trait I actually really, really want in a leader. For instance, during the debate, she was furious as she stood up for the thousands of men of color who have been stopped and frisked, the millions of black and brown families who were preyed upon with redlining, and children with disabilities who faced budget cuts while billionaires got a tax break this year.

Warren’s rage is almost always in the service of others and that’s her secret weapon. Nothing made that more obvious than when Pete Buttigieg pressed Amy Klobuchar about forgetting the name of the president of Mexico. Warren jumped in, not to prove that she knew the answer, but to stand up for the only other woman onstage, even if she’s her competitor.

“Let’s be clear: Missing a name all by itself does not indicate that you do not understand what’s going on, and I just think that’s a mistake,” Warren said. Even when an injustice is lobbed at her opponent in a way that could totally benefit her, Warren doesn’t take the bait. Isn’t that precisely the quality we want in the person we elect to the highest office?

And, related, an image I found on Facebook and reposted earlier today:

Warren was not mean, nor angry. She was _effective_.

There is nothing wrong with women expressing anger. We’ve certainly given them enough reasons to do so.

And any blather about Warren’s debate performance being too mean, or aggressive, or not pleasant enough, is astoundingly obvious sexist claptrap (but of course, to my utter lack of surprise, is plentiful).

Saint Expedite

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From Julie McGalliard, the story of how she discovered “St. Expedite”, the “patron saint of getting things done in a hurry”.

Saint Expedite and me: Part 1:

Our guide took us through Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is the oldest church building in New Orleans. It’s Catholic, of course, but it also has — according to our tour guide — the only genuine Voodoo saint in the US. He showed us the statue of “St. Expedite” (yes, his placard has the quotes) and told us the following story:

This Italian-made statue of a young Roman Centurion is from the 19th century. It was secular, intended for a Garden District mansion. But it was delivered to the cathedral by mistake. The French-speaking nuns opened it and, seeing that it was similar in size and style to the statues of saints in the Cathedral, they assumed it was a saint they were unfamiliar with and put him on display, using the name stamped on the outside of the crate: Expedite.

Some time later they discovered their mistake and tried to remove the statue, but after much public outcry, they put him back up again. See, the local Voodoos had already taken Saint Expedite to heart as the patron saint of getting things done in a hurry.

[…]

It wasn’t until then that I made the connection between things I wanted being offered to me, on the contingency that I accept them RIGHT NOW, and having earlier asked for a blessing from the mysterious entity known as Saint Expedite.

And be sure to continue on to the next post, Saint Expedite and me: Part 2

“You know that statue that’s been in the crawlspace forever? I think it’s Saint Expedite.”

We thought this unlikely, to say the least. Because there aren’t statues of Saint Expedite — not in this country, anyway. The one in New Orleans was the only one, as far as we knew. As far as anyone knew. That’s why the tour guide could tell that story about the nuns and the mis-delivered statue, because he could be confident that nobody taking the tour had ever seen or heard of Saint Expedite before.

Still, we had to go to Port Townsend and check it out.

Fascinating story, and you know? It never hurts to keep things like this in mind when you’re in need of a little extra assistance.

On This Day: Feb 20

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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 23 posts previously published on February 20th

  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2021
    • 📚 9/2021: Failed State by Christopher Brown ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee 2/6 Not quite as “we came far too close to this” as its predecessor, so a bit easier to get through. Has some interesting ideas for a post-ecological-collapse approach to legal liability. ➡
  • 2020
    • Star Trek: Picard S01E05 Stardust City Rag Bjayzl, vajazzle, let's call the whole thing off.... ➡
    • Be Angry, Elizabeth There is nothing wrong with women expressing anger. We’ve certainly given them enough reasons to do so. ➡
    • Saint Expedite Fascinating story, and you know? It never hurts to keep things like this in mind when you're in need of a little extra assistance. ➡
    • On This Day: Feb 20 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from February 20 ➡
    • Whidbey Island Getaway I played a bit with getting some abstract shots of the decay and geometries of the structures. Those shots, along with more representational shots, are up on Flickr. ➡
  • 2019
    • Siddown, Bernie I have the advantage of being a straight cis white male, and thanks to those genetic/social happenstances, it's easier and safer for me to say this than it is for many other people who don't fall into one or more of those categories: take a seat, Bernie. ➡
  • 2017
    • Book seventeen of 2017: Firestorm, by L. A. Graf. 🌟🌟🌟 ➡
  • 2016
    • From earlier at dinner. My chopstick skills are a little shaky, but I get the job done. :) (51/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Fire Destroys Students?!? Unfortunate fold placement for this issue of the campus paper. (The missing word is “Apartment”, and no one was harmed, just property.) ➡
  • 2010
    • Seagoth Survey Are you now, or have you ever been, involved with or considered yourself a part of the Seagoth (Seattle gothic) community? If so, please take a moment to help me out! Thank you very much! ➡
  • 2007
  • 2004
    • This bandwagon just keeps rollin’ on… Thank God for people like Gavin Newsom — people who decide that it's time to do the right thing, and do it. And congratulations to every single one of the more than 3,000 brand-new married, loving couples. It's been a long time coming. ➡
    • Smoke and mirrors Related to the previous post, a new whitepaper from security consulting firm BoydForbes Security states that the nation's aviation security system is 'smoke and mirrors.' ➡
    • Now boarding Osama bin Laden… Imagine if the world's most notorious fugitive, Osama bin Laden, attempted to board an airliner in the United States. Suppose he were clean-shaven, sporting short hair, wearing a pinstriped business suit and looked like so many other travelers that no suspicions were raised. How far might he get? ➡
  • 2002
    • Cross-platform 2.0 Tom was good enough to send me two screenshots of my site that he took on his *nix box. Generally good results, but (sigh) not perfect. ➡
    • MT Upgrade While I'm sure this matters to absolutely nobody except me, I thought I'd post a quick note to track the changes -- I've just upgraded Movable Type (the scripts that I use to run and manage my blog) to version 1.4. ➡
    • Palindromania Need a cheap excuse to party? At 8:02pm tonight, if you use military time, it will be **20:02 20/02 2002**. This won't happen again until Dec. 12, 2112 at 12:12pm -- and won't happen again after that. ➡
  • 2001
    • New ‘puter! A 350 MHz blue and white Power Mac G3, 128 MB memory, DVD player, 22.3 GB of storage spread across three drives (1 ATA/IDE, 2 SCSI), and dual 17 inch monitors, one running off an IMS Twin Turbo card, the other running off an ATI Rage 128. ➡

Whidbey Island Getaway

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Whidbey Island Getaway

Since we had an extra day this past weekend, Prairie and I decided to run off for a “mini-break”, and headed up to Whidbey Island for an overnight stay in a B&B. We stayed at the Anchorage Inn B&B, which was a pretty place with pleasant hosts, drove around the island, and spent some time exploring Fort Casey State Park.

While wandering Fort Casey, I played a bit with getting some abstract shots of the decay and geometries of the structures. Those shots, along with more representational shots, are up on Flickr.

Getting away for a day was long overdue!

On This Day: Feb 19

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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 23 posts previously published on February 19th

  • 2024
  • 2023
    • 📚 Widowland by C.J. Carey No review, as this book is a Philip K. Dick Award nominee, and I am the coordinator for the award ceremony at Norwescon. While I have no input into the selection of nominees or judging, I want to be sure to avoid any appearance of influence. ➡
  • 2022
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Book seventeen of 2019: Beyond This Horizon, by Robert A. Heinlein. ⭐️⭐️ 1943 Retro Hugo Best Novel. 📚 As an exploration of boredom in a utopia and the possibilities of genetic engineering, it’s mildly interesting, but felt unfocused, oddly structured, and kind of tedious. ➡
  • 2018
    • Book ten of 2018 (and fourth #pkdickaward nominee): The Book of Etta, by Meg Elison. 🌟🌟🌟 ➡
  • 2017
    • 2017 PK Dick Reviews Here are my thoughts on each of the nominated books, in order from my least favorite to my personal favorite and pick for the award. ➡
    • Book sixteen (and sixth and final #PKDickAward nominee) of 2017: Unpronounceable, by Susan diRende. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
    • Book fifteen (and fifth #PKDickAward nominee) of 2017: Super Extra Grande, by Yoss. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
    • It’s barely visible, but there was a rainbow this evening. I tried to get it shooting up out of my head. Didn’t quite work. (50/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Red Robot thinks it’s time to go home. Sadly, it’s not. I think I need to check his clock settings. ;) ➡
  • 2013
    • 2012 Philip K. Dick Award Thoughts One of the highlights of Norwescon is the award dinner for the annual Philip K. Dick Award for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. For the second year running, I've purchased and read each of the nominated books. What follows are the brief reviews I posted to Goodreads as I finished each book. ➡
  • 2010
    • DVDs vs. Piracy I want to make it clear that I don't condone piracy (of the digital or high-seas version, outside of the silly over-romanticized modern view of historical pirates). However, there's a very real truth in this graphic. ➡
  • 2007
  • 2004
    • 10 Random Songs From D: Put your .mp3 collection on random, list the first 10 songs it plays. No editing allowed (though I don't mind editorializing, myself). ➡
    • 99 percent failsafe That abstinence bit worked REAL well for Mary and Joseph, didn't it? It's 100 percent fail-safe, after all. ➡
    • Apple out of debt Impressive, really — even with the economy in the shape it's been lately, Apple has been doing so well that they were just able to pull themselves out of debt. ➡
    • Clumsy Brits According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, in 2002… ➡
    • XFN Friendly For those who care (yes, this means you, Phil), my 'Elsewhere' page is now XFN-friendly. ➡
    • Why the genealogy bug? Because it makes history real. ➡
    • More on the genealogy project I spent some time last night following up on playing around with software for tracking my family's history on our website. So far, things are actually looking fairly good — and the first version of the family tree is up on the web. ➡
  • 2002

On This Day: Feb 18

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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 24 posts previously published on February 18th

  • 2024
  • 2021
    • This is the entirety of an email I got this morning. I’m used to the occasional weird spam getting through, but this was a standout. A no0b spammer just getting their software set up? I got caught in an initial test run, perhaps? ➡
  • 2020
  • 2018
    • Found these at Ross today, and they were so wonderful/horrible I had to have them. “I put the ‘naughty’ in ‘Illuminati’!” 😆 ➡
  • 2017
    • Book fourteen (and fourth #PKDickAward nominee) of 2017: Hwarhath Stories, by Eleanor Arnason ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
    • With a slightly better background, this would be a good indie album cover. (49/366) ➡
  • 2014
  • 2009
    • Links for February 18th from 07:00 to 13:31 Sometime between 07:00 and 13:31, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! • Non-Hierarchical Management • Irony for Me: The Trilogy Tomatometer • No Photo Ban in Subways, Yet an Arrest • Facebook Backs Down on Privacy Terms • YouTube - the Simpsons - NEW Main Title ➡
  • 2006
  • 2005
    • Run away! Run away! Prairie and I are running away for the weekend, down to a beach house that her dad has access in Greyland, somewhere south of Aberdeen on the Washington coast. Rest, relax, and so forth. Be back sometime Sunday-ish! ➡
    • More on Harvard and Women I haven't had as much time to really dive into this as I'd like, but that happens sometimes. A transcript of Harvard President Lawrence Summers' controversial remarks has been released — and it does appear that the man was being a bit of a goob. ➡
  • 2004
    • Brain Drain As other nations become more attractive to mobile immigrant talent, America is becoming less so. A recent study by the National Science Board found that the U.S. government issued 74,000 visas for immigrants to work in science and technology in 2002, down from 166,000 in 2001--an astonishing drop of 55 percent. ➡
    • Why gay marriage should not be legalized Obviously, gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children. ➡
    • Duck! The food’s shooting back! Capt. Craig Kohlbeck of the Brown County Sheriff's Department said the husband had put the ammunition and three handguns in the oven before the couple left on a vacation. ➡
    • iPhotoToGallery iPhotoToGallery is a beautifully handy plugin for iPhoto that adds the ability to export directly to Gallery installations. Very nice. ➡
    • Heaven and Hell …the damned Windows users are forever bombarded with boiling projectile vomit from the thousand-foot high screaming thing that used to be Bill Gates. ➡
  • 2003
    • Movie Quiz A movie quiz from Dave Hyatt. I didn't want to open up his comments to make my stab at the answers, since I'd probably see other people's answers, so I'm doing it via Trackback. I'll start with the quiz, and put my answers in the rest of this post. You can use the comments if you want to play along, too! ➡
  • 2002
    • Unamerican Blasphemy means ignoring your dreams. ➡
    • Britney Spears [Britney Spears] is progressively wearing less and less at an alarming rate. It won't be long until she's dancing around bare ass nude at Arena football halftime shows while dousing her naked gyrating body in Pepsi. ➡
    • Air Force gets ray guns The AC-130 gets a laser gun. Cool! ➡
    • You suck. I put your post into Babelfish's Elitist-to-English translator, and all I came back with was: 'You suck.' ➡
  • 1999
    • [From Usenet: 2.18.99 0000] Has anyone ever thought much of the possiblity that the planet that transformed the Voyager probe into V'ger was the Borg home planet, before they got to the point of striking out on their own and assimilating everything that sneezed twice in their general direction? ➡

On This Day: Feb 17

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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 26 posts previously published on February 17th

  • 2024
  • 2020
  • 2018
    • In the midst of a power outage, so I grabbed sandwiches on the way home, Prairie got her USB drive with Jurassic Park (she uses it for her classes), and it’s dinner and a movie by candlelight for us! ➡
  • 2016
    • All the snow melted away during our long weekend in Olympia! Obviously, we should have taken that trip weeks ago. (48/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • I’m not thrilled that the three-day weekend is over, but at least the long weekend means this will be a short work week. ➡
  • 2013
    • Me at Norwescon 36 In just a few weeks, I will once again be indulging in four days of glorious geekery at Norwescon 36. I'm wearing more hats than ever before this year, so here's a rough rundown of what I'll be doing and where you'll be able to find me... ➡
  • 2010
  • 2009
    • Links for February 17th from 14:54 to 17:12 Sometime between 14:54 and 17:12, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! • Magenta Ain't a Colour • A Young Mad Scientist's First Alphabet Blocks • CBS & Paramount Announce First Star Trek Blu-Ray Sets • Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Specify Your Canonical • Joss Whedon Goes Where No TV Man Has Gone Before ➡
  • 2007
    • As You Wish I'd be hard pressed to come up with a Top Five (or even Top Ten or Twenty) list of favorite movies, but if I did, The Princess Bride would definitely be on there. ➡
  • 2006
    • The Last Trip I Took Paper number three for ENG101. A 'personal narrative' essay about the last time I did any sort of illegal narcotics. ➡
  • 2005
    • Another Music Meme: Cover Me Another music meme, this one being started by Terrance: Cover Me. ➡
    • Not Gallimaufry Since I've kind of slacked off on my 'Gallimaufry' meme posts over the past few weeks, here's a music meme from Don to play with. ➡
  • 2004
    • Barry Manilow listens to Underworld?!? I was poking around on the iTunes Music Store, and started looking at some of the Celebrity Playlists — essentially 'mix tapes' (only there's no tape involved) assembled by famous people. I saw Barry Manilow listed, and had to know. ➡
    • Free music is good I got my first free song from the iTMS today, thanks to the current promotion with Pepsi! ➡
    • Soundtrack to a wedding During the wedding reception, Kevin and Emily passed out CDs they had made with a selection of songs special to the two of them. Here are the songs that they chose to represent them at this point in their life. ➡
    • Genealogy software wishlist Okay, so here's what I wish I had available in a genealogy software package. Any mad coders out there feel like putting it together? ;) ➡
    • Back home with lots of pictures I've managed to get my photos of the trip uploaded. Feel free to take a look, just realize that many of the shots are out of sequence. ➡
  • 2003
    • Flirt vodka Something tells me that this isn't an ad we'd see here in America. Not sure why? It's kind of subtle. Look at his legs. Sure makes me wish I knew Russian, just so I knew what the ad copy was. ➡
    • Apple bloggers? There's been much discussion recently regarding Microsoft bloggers. Got me thinking — what about 'Apple bloggers'? The only one I know of off the top of my head is Dave Hyatt, who works on the rendering engine for Safari. Any others out there I should know about? ➡
    • Scoblemania Yikes. After going through my 'Technology' grouping in NetNewsWire, which includes RSS feeds for 34 different weblogs and news sites, every link that I called up as 'probably worth babbling about' was from Robert Scoble. ➡
    • Riot in Anchorage A Fur Rondy teen dance erupted late Saturday into what officials are calling a riot of 300 youths spitting, kicking and throwing rocks and bottles at police in downtown Anchorage. Nearly every on-duty Anchorage police officer, about 70 in all, converged around the Egan Center. What happened remained muddled Sunday. Police and the Egan Center manager gave different versions of how the situation got out of control. ➡
    • No jive talkin' Unfortunately, at this point, the plugin mangles URL's (see the comments to the previous post) so I can't use it to post and link anywhere. With any luck that will be corrected at some later point, though… ➡
    • Jive talkin' This is a test, and this is only a test. Hopefully it will at least be an amusing test — I'm playing with the MovableJive text formatting plugin for MovableType 2.6. I probably won't use this very often, but it could be fun from time to time. Included filters are Jive, Texas Drawl, Cockney, Swedish Chef, Valley Girl, German Accent, and Hunting Wabbits. ➡
  • 2001
    • Completing the set So, I've now got a collection of all 19 official Bond movies to feed my testosterone fix when I need it...woohoo! ➡
    • Great Napster discussions I understood Metallica's plight at first. There music was being hijacked, goddamn it! But their waning CD sales weren't from Napster, but from the fact that they were like a tough version of Poison; they should have become extinct when the meteor of alternative hit. ➡
    • Karaokemon! Hell is going to be me strapped into a chair at a lounge where there are a bunch of different Pokemon all singing Karaoke. ➡