On This Day: Feb 14

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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 31 posts previously published on February 14th

  • 2025
  • 2024
  • 2021
    • Would you be my meatheart? Happy Valentine’s Day! ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • 🖖 #StarTrekDiscovery S02E05: Mostly continues the stronger season. I’m really enjoying Pike, the adventures in the Upside Down, and the “sinking ship” effects were really fun. But I’m not sold on the non-secret Section 31, and the continuing Spock teases are ever more annoying. ➡
    • This image, visible for just a second or two in this trailer for LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS, an upcoming animated SF anthology show on Netflix (content warning: strobing/flashing images, glimpses of possibly NSFW content) made me laugh. ➡
    • Happy Valentine’s Day (or not, if you prefer)! A happy Valentine’s Day to all of you who are celebrating with spouses, partners, significant others, metamours, paramours, lovers, friends with benefits, playmates, platonic loves, or any other applicable person, persons, or combinations of the above. And for those of you who for whatever reason don’t celebrate this day, I hope you have a good ... Read more ➡
    • Book sixteen of 2019: Slan, by A.E. van Vogt. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1941 Retro Hugo Best Novel 📚 Definitely dated, esp. regarding views of women, odd extrapolation of tech (a very 40s world, but with ray guns & antigravity ships), but I’ve read far worse from this era. Fans are slans! 😏 ➡
  • 2018
    • Valentine’s Day may not be one of the High Holy Days in our household, but it doesn’t go entirely unrecognized, either. Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast! ➡
  • 2017
    • Prairie got me a cute lil’ puppy for Valentine’s Day! #lego ➡
    • Quick tip for iPhone users: Say “Hey, ‘puter” to Siri! #lego #legobatman #batman ➡
  • 2016
    • Book eight of 2016: Apex, by Ramez Naam. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee. #rameznaam ➡
    • Found a nice path for a morning walk, with real trees! And moss! And a light drizzle! Gee, I think we miss the west side. (45/366) ➡
    • Breakfast of bread and fruit, taken in bed. Good start to this Valentine’s Day! ➡
  • 2014
    • Whether you see this as Valentine’s Day, S.A.D. (Single’s Awareness Day), or just another day on the calendar, I hope you have a good one! ➡
  • 2011
  • 2009
    • Meat My Valentine Happy Valentine's Day, everyone -- or Happy S.A.D. (Singles Awareness Day), depending on your situation. Whichever it is, I hope you have a good one. ➡
  • 2008
    • De M’amour Soiez Sure Our Valentine's Day presents to each other: poesy rings inscribed with 'Of my love be sure' in French. ➡
  • 2007
    • Happy Valentine’s Day Hope everyone's V-Day (or anti-V-Day, depending on how you look at this particular holiday) was a good one! ➡
    • Hatred Fatigue Hatred Fatigue: being so wearily sick of the Bush Administration pushing forth an agenda which is on every point the precise opposite of what you think and believe that you can’t bear to pay attention anymore. ➡
  • 2006
    • Frequently Secretly Willie Nelson has a new song out. Normally, this wouldn't be something that I'd take much notice of -- while I don't have anything against country music (and even have a little in my collection), it's not my main forte. This one, however...isn't your typical country song. ➡
  • 2005
    • Back when I was cute… A post by Terrance prompted me to pull out an old picture of me from when I was about two years old. :) ➡
    • Reason interview with Neal Stephenson There's a great interview with Neal Stephenson at Reason right now. Every time I read something by Neal, whether a book or an interview, it amazes me how unassumingly intelligent this man is. ➡
    • On Valentine’s Day Valentine's Day is like the opposite of Christmas. On Christmas we go to bed looking forward to exchanging gifts with the people we love. On Valentine's Day we exchange gifts hoping to go to bed with the people we love. ➡
    • Happy Valentine’s Day Happy Valentine's Day everyone! The weekend actually didn't end up being too bad, given that I was feeling fairly miserable when it got started. Visits, movies, and a bit of website tweaking. ➡
  • 2004
    • Too many people! Besides — my little brother's going to be married in another fourteen hours. I owe him a drink. :) ➡
    • The day before I'm sitting at the house that Kevin and Emily have been staying at, taking advantage of a momentary lull in the activities of the day to check in for a few minutes. ➡
  • 2001
    • A little too obvious? This is so sad. They're just lamely trying to copy Steve Jobs' Apple presentation -- right down to the guy having a black shirt and black pants.... It's almost like Windows ME 2. Or as Apple might call it, Windows Me Too. ➡
    • A tribute album worth listening to Tribute albums have a tendency to be one of the most overdone and under-worthy genres in the music business. Take a bunch of songs by a worthy artist, farm them out to a bunch of bands that aren't nearly as well known, and issue a 'tribute' album that usually tends to be an excercise in mediocrity. ➡

Difficult Listening Hour 2020.02.13

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Week four of my unplanned, unrehearsed, seat-of-the-pants goofing around. All mashups this week! As a way of getting back into practice and doing something regularly, I’ve started doing regular Twitch broadcasts on Thursday nights. These are the results. Anything goes.

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Spaceballs-Inspired Robot Mask

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Since we’re going to have a Longest Night masked ball at Norwescon this year, I picked up a basic mask this past Halloween season. However, it was all black plastic, so I knew I’d want to decorate it somehow so it didn’t look like wearing blackface. I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to do.

This Saturday, the Mercury is doing a masked ball, so this gave me the impetus I needed to find an idea. What eventually came to mind as inspiration was Vinnie, Pizza the Hut’s henchman in Spaceballs. He’s a robot, but it was all done with makeup, no prosthetics.

My painting skills aren’t great—I have no idea how to do actual shading, it’s all solid colors and lines—so I doubt people would really connect the final result with the inspiration. Even so, I’m pretty happy with the end result.

Day zero: The base mask.

The base mask.

Day one: Sketching the design in pencil, and the first coat of white.

Sketching the design in pencilFirst coat of white

Day two: Second coat of white, and adding the metallic silver.

Second coat of white, and adding the metallic silver

Day three: Detailing in black, and the finished product. Likely won’t be easily identified as the inspiration, but I think it still comes across as decently robotic. I’m happy with it, at least.

Detailing in blackThe finished mask

On This Day: Feb 13

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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 13th

  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2021
    • The world’s most misunderstood novel: “The Great Gatsby is synonymous with parties, glitz and glamour – but this is just one of many misunderstandings about the book that began from its first publication.” ➡
  • 2020
    • Star Trek: Picard S01E04 Absolute Candor 'He can't even go on a guilt trip without a starship.' ➡
    • Spaceballs-Inspired Robot Mask Likely won’t be easily identified as the inspiration, but I think it still comes across as decently robotic. I’m happy with it, at least. ➡
    • On This Day: Feb 13 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from February 13 ➡
    • 📚 ten of 2020: All Worlds are Real, by Susan Palwick ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee Good collection of bittersweet and thoughtful short stories. Particular favorites are “Cucumber Gravy”, “Lucite”, “Homecoming”, “Remote Presence”, and “Recoveries”. ➡
  • 2016
    • Prairie and me with nieces Nalah and Finn at Nalah’s 7th birthday party. (44/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • Today’s page in my “Stupid Quotes” calendar. #50ShadesofGrey #FiftyShadesofGrey #peopleacutuallyenjoyreadingthisjunk ➡
  • 2014
    • Watching more downloaded Olympics while I exercise, but this event was recorded off of Swedish TV. Can’t understand the commentary, but they still sound like sports commentators. Sadly, not a single “börk börk börk!” ➡
  • 2010
    • No Olympics For Us While it's not quite to the point of being what I'd call a 'boycott,' it's looking like the chances are extremely slim that we're going to be watching much of this year's Olympic coverage. We'd like to, but NBC has done a marvelous job of ensuring that we either _can't_ watch, or when we can, we don't want to. ➡
  • 2009
    • 1234567890 As of now -- Feb. 13th 2009, at 3:31 (and 30 seconds) PM (PST), the Unix Time is **1234567890**. ➡
  • 2006
  • 2005
    • Alive and Well Or, at least, as well as I ever get. ;) More to come as I continue to play catch-up. ➡
  • 2004
  • 2003
    • Seems simple to me Here I am, working at the single biggest software company in the world, packed to the brim with some of the brightest people in the tech industry — and yet they need signs posted outlining a four-step process to get a free soda out of the vending machines. ➡
    • Upgrades galore Two important (in my world) software upgrades hit the 'net today: Mac OS X was upgraded to version 10.2.4, and MovableType was upgraded to version 2.6. Both are installed, and both are working like a charm. ➡
    • Weather wierdness It looks like Dave Winer and John Teggatz have all the cold weather that Dad is complaining he's missing in Anchorage. And on an entirely unrelated note: I really wish that Dave's RSS feed had individual posts linked to their permalinks. ➡
    • Your e-mail is safe from scrutiny More good news as I catch up on my newsreading — the Total Information Awareness program is facing heavy opposition, and is likely to be barred from collecting information on American citizens. ➡
  • 2002
    • Enterprise: Shuttlepod One But -- and there's always a but -- those had to be some _horrid_ mashed potatoes if they could patch a hull breach with them, no matter how temporarily! I'd say I'd never tease my mom about her mashed potatoes after that...but, then, that'd be no fun. ;) ➡
    • Looks like I might be moving I'd noticed as we were wandering around that directly beside every door to an apartment was a small door, about a foot and a half wide and two and a half feet tall that also looked like it led into the apartment, but had been painted over and was obviously no longer used. I couldn't figure out what they were for. ➡
  • 2001
    • The collection grows again… ...like that's really a surprise to anyone who either knows me or is actually bored enough to read this babble on a regular basis. ➡
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📚 ten of 2020: All Worlds are Real, by Susan Palwick ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee

Good collection of bittersweet and thoughtful short stories. Particular favorites are “Cucumber Gravy”, “Lucite”, “Homecoming”, “Remote Presence”, and “Recoveries”.

Picard Theory (Probably Wrong) 🖖

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Adding to my list of probably wrong predictions about where a current Star Trek show is going (most recently, for Discovery, those would include that the Kelpiens and the Ba’ul are different stages of the same species and that Control was the genesis of the Borg)….

Spoilers for episodes two and three of Picard follow, but probably not for anything beyond that, because I’m usually wrong about these things. :)

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On This Day: Feb 12

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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 12th

  • 2024
  • 2021
    • 📚 7/2021: Bone Silence by Alastair Reynolds ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee 1/6 A satisfying end to the Revenger trilogy. Not all questions answered, but those most central to the main adventure are. If the “high seas adventure in space” conceit works for you, it’s a good series. ➡
  • 2020
    • Picard Theory (Probably Wrong) 🖖 Spoilers for episodes two and three of _Picard_ follow, but probably not for anything beyond that, because I'm usually wrong about these things. :) ➡
    • Someone Built a Distraction-Free Cellphone With a Working Old-School Rotary Dial: “Haupt’s creation seems like it was brought to Earth from a parallel dimension where mobile phones took an entirely different evolutionary route, and where technologies like touchscreens never came to fruition.” ➡
    • On This Day: Feb 12 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from February 12 ➡
  • 2019
    • Bed used in hotel honeymoon suite for 15 years then discarded in a parking lot, rescued by an antiques dealer, and initially believed to be Victorian, turns out to be Henry VII’s marriage bed. ➡
    • Book fifteen of 2019: The Book of Merlyn, by T.H. White. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 📚 A curious coda to TOaFK, mostly serving as an argument against humankind’s warlike tendencies. Not critical to finish Arthur’s story, IMHO. ➡
  • 2016
    • Kicking off this long weekend with the latest Bond flick. Doo doo, doo dooooooo… (43/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Turned into a gorgeous day, 48 degrees and snow melting off everywhere, and the sun is even above the hills at 5PM! Are we sure it’s not spring yet? ➡
  • 2010
    • Links for February 3rd through February 12th Sometime between February 3rd and February 12th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! • Now You Can Facebook Chat Through iChat • How to Create a Google Buzz Desktop App • Deckle Edge in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction • Pepsi Skips Super Bowl TV Advertising for Social Media • Confused by the 'Lost' Premiere? Never Fear! Damon and Carlton Explain a Few Things About the Start of Season 6 (SPOILERS AHEAD) ➡
  • 2009
    • Good Twitter Marketing is Communication The single most important aspect to marketing successfully on Twitter is having a real person behind the account. Many companies seem to see Twitter as little more than an RSS reader for people who don't grok RSS readers, and that's a rather sad outlook. ➡
    • Links for February 11th through February 12th Sometime between February 11th and February 12th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! • Darwin Survives as the Fittest • Evolution and Facebook's "25 Random Things About Me" Craze. • Czar Struck: Obama’s Brilliant Pick for Drug Czar • 15 Companies That Might Not Survive 2009 • Surprising Stories Behind 20 Muppet Characters ➡
  • 2007
    • Which Super Villain am I? Which super villain am I? 'You fear the persecution of those that are different or underprivileged so much that you are willing to fight and hurt others for your cause.' ➡
    • Wanted: One Apology from the Seattle PI The PI's public vilification of the crane operator was a slimy, sleazy way to grab eyeballs and sell papers at the expense of his reputation. Trial and conviction should be handled in the courts, not in the headlines. ➡
  • 2004
    • Atom feed now available Seeing as how an Atom-enabled beta of NetNewsWire just hit the 'net, I took a few moments to get an Atom newsfeed up and running for Eclecticism. ➡
    • Biggest breakup of the year I'm talking a breakup of real importance here — one that will be inspiring headlines in all the rags, sending the talk-show hosts into a flurry, and prompting a whole slew of rabid fan sites lamenting the passing of such a long-adored perfect couple. ➡
    • The Grey Album Vocal tracks from Jay-Z's 'The Black Album' + samples from The Beatle's 'The White Album' = Danger Mouse's 'The Grey Album'. ➡
    • Good advice Kids, this is all the shit I had to learn the hard way. Now that I’m retired it’s time to pass it on, so you won’t have to suffer the same indignities I did. ➡
  • 2003
    • Patriot II raising ire Finally, some good movement happening on the polictical front — a very welcome change from last week's ranting and raving. It seems that the recently-leaked 'Patriot II' draft, in addition to getting attention in the blogging world, is also raising eyebrows on Capitol Hill. ➡
    • Recommend me? Actually, I'm not out to be a boyfriend right now — pretty happy staying single for the foreseeable future — but I can think of plenty of times when I wouldn't have minded getting a recommendation on greatboyfriends.com! ➡
    • Awww – how sweet! Just a little 'Wüdi love' from me to my readers, in honor of the coming Valentine's Day. Yeah, even I can get a little mushy from time to time. Who knew? ➡
  • 2002
  • 2001
    • If? What is this if? If I were a lesbian, she would make me go straight! ➡
    • Hannibal I just don't think the script gave much to work with, and I can say that I definitely agree with both Jonathan Demme and Jodi Foster's decisions to pass up on returning to this film. ➡
  • 1994
    • [From Usenet: 2.12.94 0400] I got a shirt a while back only because I thought it was great (person with bird's head mask holding a naked woman upside down by a knife through the foot, says 'Some have to dance, some have to kill' on the back), and someone recently told me it was a Psychic TV shirt. ➡

Recommeowndations

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Our “Movies we think you’ll like” lineup on Amazon Prime tonight included:

Sherlock Holmes
Murder on the Orient Express
Clue
The VelociPastor

and

Movies for Cats – Forest Songbirds

Apparently, the combination of Law and Order SVU, The Fabulous Mrs. Maisel, The Expanse, and Dr. Who (before it was taken off) is enough to convince Amazon that we’re…murder kittens.

Well, okay then.