Blog – Page 292

Firefox 3 “Download Day”

Downloaded your copy of Mozilla Firefox 3 yet to help them make the world record? I’ve been using Firefox 3 since the early betas and I’ve got no qualms about recommending it wholeheartedly. The awsomebar is simply that: awesome, the speed and memory usage have become far better than the previous version, and the care and attention that have gone into the little things – like the fact that it now asks you if you want to save passwords after you’ve seen if they were correct, not before – really do make this the best web browser I’ve ever used.

Go download it already.

The Beer Is Breathing

Hurrah! I feared for a while that the yeast I’m using might have died (either of old age, or of being kept in our utility room, which alternates between being very warm and very cool), but when my latest homebrew beer started breathing this morning, I knew that everything was going to be all right.

If you can’t see the video above, view this post on my blog or view the video on YouTube.

An airlock bubbles as beer brews

I’ve just set off a new batch of homebrew. The yeast was a little old, and I was concerned that it might not still be alive. But just a couple of hours after adding it to the wort, here’s the evidence that it’s breathing!

Also available on YouTube.

Enter The Ninja

So, like a handful of others, I’ll be participating in Andy‘s Ninja Burger game tonight. He’s asked us each to throw together a character – or at least to look at character generation – so here’s mine:

Name: Ava Kurosawa
Job Title: Driver
Qualities:

Average [+0] Ninja

Average [+0] Driver (just because he does it doesn’t mean he’s particularly good at it)

Good [+2] at Bojitsu (staff/club fighting)

Good [+2] at Problem Solving (years of training in the Zen arts; also one-handed Rubix cube solving)

Good [+2] at Reading Minds (a natural instinct for understanding what people want)

Poor [-2] at Acting Impulsively (his clan history forbids rash thinking, and this has rubbed off on him, making him indecisive)

Background: Ava is descended from a long history of Ninja drivers. Despite only being an average driver, he seeks to gain the respect and honour of his family through his work with Ninja Burger, and by practicing the calm, collected, enlightened path of his clan. He prefers blunt weapons and particularly the bo staff.

Element: Air
Clan: Mysterious Clan Of The Gazebo Slayers
Matter of Honour: “I will never attack without provocation.”
Honour Score: TBC

If you haven’t put together a character yet because you haven’t seen the rules, there’s a copy here. Just make sure you use the 2nd edition ones!

I gather we’ll be meeting in #ninjaburger on Freenode at 7:30ish. If you’re confused as to how to do that, just use Abnib Chat and ask for help.

Vanilla Sky, A Letter, And A Trip

VANILLA SKY

Perhaps Vanilla Sky wasn’t the best choice of film to finish Troma Night last night on, based on the dream I had:

I dreamt that I was dreaming, and that during that inner dream I became lucid [not so hard, actually, and something I periodically do normally]. In the inner dream, I’d broken my phone while snowboarding, and needed to replace the battery, and so, in a test of dream control, I simply made a new battery materialise and installed it. However aware I was that I was in a dream, however, I didn’t come to realise that I was dreaming that I was dreaming – I was convinced that I was aware of my waking life as the one that I had in the first-level dream – until I “woke up” and, a few minutes later, achieved lucidity again.

Strange, but not really unexpected: mixing my head with films that have themes of altered states of conciousness almost invariably gives these kinds of results.

A LETTER

We’ve got a letter here addressed to Bryn – it came through the letterbox yesterday evening at some point. If you’d like to pick it up, Bryn, we’ll be around all morning and then we’re disappearing (see below).

A TRIP

Claire and I are off to Preston this afternoon to visit my family before moving on to Manchester tomorrow, where we’re seeing Foo Fighters. We’re back late on Monday night/early Tuesday morning. I gather that Geek Night B is taking place at Rory’s tonight, if anybody’s that way inclined, but I’m afraid you can’t have Pandemic, because I’ve promised to play it with my family. Next week!

Does Food Go Missing From Your Kitchen?

Does food ever go missing in your house and you don’t know who’s eaten it? You probably ought to check all of your cupboards, then, in case you’ve had a small Japanese woman living in one of them for the last year and you hadn’t noticed.

Reasons To Tick The “It’s Complicated” Box

Assuming you’re reading Abnib in chronological order, you’re already aware that Claire and JTA split up a little while ago. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so mutual, so on-equal-terms, so amicable a breakup, ever. While Ruth and I sat on the beach and discussed how we’d need to be ready to provide support to them, they’d already got the talking parts out of the way and were having a game of Mario Party 8.

That’s not to say that it hasn’t been emotionally draining for them: I’m sure it has. But from all accounts, it sounds like they made the right choice for them. And after they’d done whatever they needed to, they each got to go home with their other partner (me, in Claire’s case; Ruth in JTA’s) and a tub of ice-cream. Is there anything more equitable?

I suppose, of course, that this makes the four of us less like a “quad”, and more of a “U-shape” (remember the diagrams I drew way back when? – here they are again).

Although I suppose by that point, one might as well draw a line:

Ruth and I are still doing fine, although this new structure gives us some fresh challenges. These challenges are all logistical in nature (over the last eight months or so, we’ve all gotten pretty good at dealing with the communication and emotional challenges we’ve come across), and perhaps the biggest one has come from the fact that between the four of us, we only actually own two beds: when Ruth and I spend the night together, where do we put the “extra” person.

So far, Claire and JTA have been very accommodating (and then some). Typically of late, one or both of them have been spending a night or two “away” per week, which has made planning easier, but in the long run, we’re probably going to need another bed somewhere. Space-constraints as they are, perhaps a folding one is a good idea. Or maybe we just need to put some effort into setting Claire or JTA with somebody else… can’t help but feel that’ll only add complexity in the long run, though, so I shan’t start playing “Haaaave you met JTA?” [YouTube] quite yet. Not quite yet.

For the imminent future, there are bigger things to think about in the land of Dan’s Complicated Relationships. Ruth’s got a summer job in Oxford and since her driving test got cancelled she’s probably not going to be able to visit Aberystwyth as often as she’d planned to, so those of you who are still around will find both JTA and I missing her quite a lot for the next few months, I’m sure.

So there’s the update. Claire said pretty much everything I could have about relationship structures and whatnot, so I just wanted to say a few words about logistics and about overcoming complications. I suppose that just leaves me with one question:

When you look at the diagrams above, do you see JTA and I as the squares and Ruth and Claire as the circles, or the other way around, or neither? And why do you think that is? I’ve got a theory I’d like to test.

How To Make Money, You Hobo – A Cautionary Tale

Last night I had a particularly vivid and unusual dream:

JTA and I were homeless and living on the streets of some foreign city (it was somewhat reminiscent of London, but most folks spoke French, so I guess it wasn’t); jobless, hungry, and generally sleeping in the central railway station, except when the police or station staff moved us on.

In order to make some money – and as much to give us something to do with our time and to keep our spirits up – we decided to put together a piece of musical street theatre. For some reason I was carrying a concertina (Claire‘s?) and was quite able to play it, and JTA had a reasonable singing voice, so we began to put together a cautionary tale that we would perform, telling the story of JTA’s life and how he got into the unfortunate position that we were now in.

In our story, JTA was bullied into going out and getting a job by his mother and sister in order to bring money into the family house, but he is lazy and he cannot hold down a job. Looking for a quick (and easy) solution, he turns to crime, and, after he accidentally murders a man he intended to rob, he flees the country to escape arrest.

Later, we went back and made some artistic adjustments to the story, in order to hammer some extra morals home – our adaptations included JTA’s introduction to a life of crime being through a shady character who accosted him on his way back from his first stable job (a cleaner at a zoo), and tempting him with “easier work,” and a change to the story of his family to make them seem less demanding and more tolerant (making his inability to support them comeacross as more shocking).

Through a variety of makeshift costume changes, I would play a number of secondary parts – JTA’s mother (who didn’t look anything like his mother actually does, and even less so when played by me), an employer, the shady character – and narrate his downfall, while JTA would play himself: initially a cheery but lazy “country bumpkin” character who feels wronged by his bad luck and eventually comes to resent the world around him.

At the point I woke up, we were still tweaking songs and hadn’t actually performed it. But it had cheered us up no end.

There was a particular song I’ve been trying to remember a line from all morning. Early on, after JTA has “lost yet another job” and is walking home, we had a line that made a clever pun on English pronounciation of the French word emploi (employment) -much of the play was done bilingually – but all I can remember is the time signature of the song and the general theme. I remember that when I woke up, I knew what it was and thought “Wow; that’s brilliant – when I blog about this dream, I must include that!” But by the time I got to a computer I’d forgotten it. Ah well.

Abnib Quotes

It only occurred to me the other week that there are lots of people who would probably want to know about Abnib Quotes – people, even, that are quoted on it – that don’t. And that’s probably my fault for not blogging about it.

So yeah – there’s an Abnib Quotes. It replaces the long-defunct RockMonkey wiki quotes pages, and it’s got cool Web 2.0 features like tagging and voting and Facebook integration and all that bollocks, and you, yes you, should be using it. If you haven’t already, go take a peep. If you haven’t in a while, go vote on the dozens of new quotes that have appeared since you last visited, and don’t forget that you can subscribe to the feed and get updates in your favourite newsreader.

Bicon 2008

Claire and I have decided that after all the fun and games of last year’s BiCon, we’re going again this year. So, if you want to come, now’s the time (well, within the next 30 days or so) to let us know, and we can help you out with lifts, combining payment, etc. If there’s anybody out there we haven’t put off with all our incessant talk about what it was like last year, we’d love for you to join us.

Here’s the (very, very vague; liable to change) plan:

On the afternoon/evening of Thursday 28th August, we’ll drive from Aberystwyth to Leicester University. The journey’ll be about three-and-a-half to four hours, and we’re easily able to pick up people from Aberystwyth, Shrewsbury, Telford, Wolverhampton, Birmingham or Coventry areas on our way through, as well as pretty much anywhere in the Northern half of mid-Wales. We’ll check in at the University, get our welcome packs and accomodation, and find out who we’re living with.
BiCon kicks off on the morning of Friday 29th August. We’ll get in a full day of workshops and whatnot.
BiCon continues on Saturday 30th August. We’re aware, however, that this evening is likely to clash with Penny/TGB‘s combined 21st/30th birthday party, so rather than going to The BiCon Ball this year, we’ll zip up to Warrington (again, providing lifts where needed, if we’ve got space) early in the evening to join the party, and return either late on in the evening or early the following morning.
Then, we’ve got another activity-packed day on Sunday 31st August, after which we’ll either return to Aberystwyth or stay overnight and return after breakfast, depending on what the options are (the website isn’t very specific right now, grr) and what we’ve all got to do on Monday (nothing, one hopes).

BiCon’s fabulous, but by badgering you all in bulk online like this I’ll be able to better refrain from badgering you all in person. If you need further persuading, just ask. The cost of the conference plus accomodation this year starts at £100 (if you’re unwaged) and climbs gradually with your earnings potential – or, if you want to live off-campus or you already live or have somewhere to stay in the area, it’s as little as £25 for the entire event or £12 per day – so if you consider it a holiday, it’s about as economical as the Real Ale Ramble (which I’ll be bothering you all about in the near future, too).

Oh, and if you don’t want to leave a comment that could be interpreted as “I’m a dirty bi slut” by the world at large, speak to me privately and we’ll get you to BiCon without the knowledge of the world at large.

Claire attempts to sing the Bulgarian National Anthem

Also available on YouTube.

Make It Stop

Karaoke. It should be banned. Especially when 6-year olds steal the show.

There simply isn’t enough alcohol.

Savage Love Readers Talk About The Campsite Rule

As some of you no doubt know, I’m a huge fan of Savage Love, the world’s coolest sex, love, and relationships advice column. A few weeks ago, author Dan Savage revisited his “campsite rule,” which can be summarised thusly:

If you’re in a sexual relationship with somebody significantly younger or less-experienced than you, the rule that applies at campsites shall be applicable to you: you must leave them in at least as good a state (physically and emotionally) as you found them in. That means no STDs, no unwanted pregnancy, not overburdening them with your emotional or sexual baggage, and so on. Younger partners and particularly virgins will often take everything given to them by an older, more experienced partner as being “written in stone,” and will carry around everything they learn from them for the rest of their life: so treat them right!

The single biggest complaint about the campsite rule could be said to be that, by omission, it seems to imply that it’s okay to be a dick to your older or similarly-experienced partner, but that’s not the intention, I feel – it’s just less of a concern because the campsite rule is specifically about protecting the vulnerable.

In any case: after it last got mentioned, the column received a spectacular number of letters from readers, talking about their experience with (or without) the campsite rule, and it’s just spectacular. It’s a long read, but you’ll see some beautiful, some inspiring, and some heart-wrenching stories from people about their young relationships (or their relationships with the young). Go read it.

Six Pounds And Eighteen Pence

That’s how much better off I am per month than I was previously. Or, as I see it, three pints.

Thank you, Gordon Brown.

Super Munchkin

There’s been quite a lot said recently on abnib about class. JTA opened up the debate; Claire followed up by listing some of her least favourite things about the stereotypes of the middle class, and attracted a lot of debate in her comments; Matt P argued that the class system doesn’t exist (or, at least, isn’t relevant) in the UK any more anyway; and even Beth weighed in with her opinions on the whole thing, although it did take me prodding her with a virtual stick before she did so.

I thought it was about time that I rode in like a knight in slimy armour (wearing my helm of peripheral vision, of course) and closed the argument once and for all:

Who says I can’t be a half-middle-class, half-lower-class half-Elf, half-Orc?

(with insincere apologies to those who don’t play Munchkin)

Incidentally, Geek Night this week will be on Friday at Ele and Penny‘s house.