We like tha moon

The state of the Wednesday

2019-01-30T13:46:32Z

I'm off to a new job today, so obviously I reverted to first day of school mode and picked out a new notebook and filled all the pens and worried all night about what would look business casual enough without being too tryhard because obviously the thing a bunch of programmers are gonna care about is whether you've got the exact right level of nerd t-shirt?

Meanwhile, the cats are cute.

Getting back in to checking and posting here, I find myself struck by how delightfully word-driven it is, and how UTTERLY out of practice I am at doing that thing. Surely, given how long I've been here, I used to know how to write full sentences and even paragraphs and not just dash off a quickie thingy?

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So, some updates are overdue

2019-01-26T14:29:25Z

As noted previously, it's been a long-ass time! (Perhaps even a long ass-time!)

I have actually popped in from time to time, but haven't, whatchamacallit, posted.

So, the quick 6-year update:
* Same spouse, same house, 2 (almost 3) jobs later. Still making code things.
* Same cat, now supplemented with a second cat. First cat is sometimes annoyed, sometimes finds her to be a useful fitness regime and grooming device.
* Silly numbers of stringed instruments.
* Much baking of bread.
* Fencing currently on hold, but might still go back some day.
* I kinda forgot how to DW. Hilariously. Like, I'm wandering around clicking on things like "wait, is THAT where that thing is?" and then 5 minutes later I've lost it all over again.

Anyway, recent conversations about the book of face being pure macerated evil, and nostalgia for the kinds of conversations we used to have on LJ, and the dream that was here, and hey why don't I post there any more, and you know. Here now. It feels urgently important in this dark timeline -- not just to be here, specifically, but to actively find the good places to be with our humans. And of course cats.

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Hello dear old DW!

2019-01-26T01:46:59Z

It's been a while, no? 6 years, from the looks of it?

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so when I tweet something MEGA-snarky about teh dudebros

2013-01-19T02:47:42Z

... and someone responds "haha ur do clever", I probably shouldn't correct the "do" (umm, so?), let alone the "ur", right?

But still, I had to note it somewhere.

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Dear Peter Jackson

2012-12-17T02:06:36Z

( Reactions within )

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Random acts of knitting

2012-12-09T15:48:32Z

I had a crazy idea that I'd make a blue hat for Blue Beanie Day, and when I went to the stash (because I wasn't going to spend money on that shit, yo) I discovered a blue hat that was already about a third of the way done. Attached to a pair of Addis I'd completely forgotten about -- score!

I'd guess I started it about 10 years ago and forgot all about it when I stopped knitting for mumblety years; the seed stitch diamonds look a lot like what I was doing around then. The green icord is yet another attempt to get rid of the very last bits of some cheapo freebie yarn, and the bit of contrast it gives is just enough to lighten up a whole lot of solid and dark.

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gchick @ 2012-07-30T19:49:00

2012-07-30T23:51:47Z

So after 10 years of dearly wishing anyone would ever show my beloved sport anywhere, like at all, it's kind of interesting to have it turn into the ZOMG WHAT WAS THAT GIANT CLUSTERFUCK of the week.

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It seems fitting

2012-07-21T14:48:03Z

To try out photo posting with this, since we all know the Internet was made for cat pictures.

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Then again, I might just be insane

2012-07-01T16:58:49Z

Starting one of these lovelies. See you in a few years, if I still have hands to type with.

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AdaCamp DC

2012-06-18T14:08:01Z

Who's going to be there?

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Finished and playtested

2012-06-17T16:38:13Z

Pattern: Dice Bag of Doom!

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gchick @ 2012-04-19T20:53:00

2012-04-20T00:54:13Z

I took the OTW Community Survey!

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Elders with funny accents

2012-04-19T23:33:33Z

When I was a child, I thought all old people had Central European accents.

After all, my grandmother did, and my great-grandmother, and absolutely everyone in my great-grandmother's nursing home. My great-aunt, and every one of her five husbands (and a near-miss!). The remaining cousins. The university friends who periodically turned up for tearful reunions. Whether they now lived in Australia or Israel or Germany or Texas, every one of the older generation had the same highly specific accent: Educated Austro-Hungarian-Empire Turn-Of-The-Century German-Speaking Jewish.

As I got older, I knew enough to know that some of these cousins were from Austria, others from what might (at certain times, but not others) be Germany or Hungary or Czechoslovakia or Poland. Those details were interesting, but didn't matter next to the basic fact: they were all cousins or friends; all ultimately from the same place.

It disconcerted me to meet other people's grandparents: they spoke American, which inside my head made no sense for that generation.

(When I finally studied German formally, my native-Berliner teacher was amazed that I knew nothing of grammar but whenever I said anything it came out sounding exactly like a senior citizen from a completely different dialect than we'd ever heard in class.)

Today was Yom Ha-shoah. While that's a certified big deal in Israel, it's hardly even noticed here: Some small-print mentions, some blog posts. The BBC World Service ran a story as I fell asleep last night about soccer leagues and cabarets in Theresienstadt, and I wept at hearing a 91-year-old man's voice -- not because he himself was anyone I knew, but because the sound was precisely that of a generation of refugees I knew who are now all gone.

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gchick @ 2012-04-07T18:39:00

2012-04-07T22:40:56Z

There are years when Pesach is a breeze and other than switching from beer to wine in the evenings I don't even think about what I'm missing.

And then there are years when by the end of the first full day I'm all OH MY FUCKING GOD I JUST WANT A FUCKING SANDWICH.

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OMG KORRA

2012-03-25T16:05:25Z

I...

I have lost all my words! No words! None are left!!

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Mycroft Cat is having a MOST tragic day

2012-03-12T21:26:08Z

See, he decided at some point last night that his beloved blue mouse toy needed to learn to swim.

I pulled blue mouse out of the water bowl this morning, wrung out all the nasty water I could, and set it in a sunny place to dry out.

Mycroft (who, unlike his namesake, is accustomed to at least a solid hour a day of vigorous exercise (which mostly consist of throwing blue mouse several feet into the air and running around the house after it)) keeps walking up to the poor sodden mousie and sniffing at it, then picking it up, then putting it down, shaking his head, sniffing again suspiciously, eyeballing it from a short distance, then CRYING to me.

No other toy is acceptable. YES we have tried.

We went out on the leash for an Outdoor Adventure at lunchtime, which seemed at the time to be very exciting, and involved new spring things to sniff and roll on. When we came in, M tried once again to resuscitate blue mouse and CRIED some more. Then he flopped down with a big sigh to take a nap.

Dear heavens, but my cat is emo as fuck.

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Knitting poll

2012-03-04T03:07:26Z

View Poll: A kiss on the hand may be quite

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gchick @ 2012-02-22T23:46:00

2012-02-23T04:46:41Z

Oh HAI nice DW peoples I missed you.

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Hmmm (on Oracle)

2011-06-07T02:27:36Z

I've started and erased an entry half a dozen times, which is usually a good sign that I'm Not As Over DC as I used to say I was. Fuckitall.

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Crap, it's been HOW LONG since I've posted?

2011-02-06T15:37:19Z

Sorry? I'm back? I've been reading at least sometimes? Missed you all!

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Cool and cooler

2010-10-06T20:20:18Z

Cool: the xkcd map of online communities has been updated and it's fabulous. And LARGE, if you click through to the big version.

COOLER!: Dreamwidth is on it <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

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mary sue is a meerkat

2010-10-01T22:26:56Z

Everything looks good so far ... still waiting a bit before upgrading hardison.

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L'shana tovah!

2010-09-08T04:02:50Z

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AHAHAHAHAHAHA! (breath) AHAHAHA!!

2010-08-10T23:04:32Z

So I was poking around on the looniversity IT department's site today. Specifically, I was trying to track down the right bit of user documentation on the in-house jabber server, because if I'm having to poke around trying to find, my users aren't going to find it at all, and I'd like to get someone who has access to fixing these things to link to it a little more visibly.

And there it was, deep in the bowels of the subsubsub^n folder on looniversity messaging services -- the very same doc on reading newsgroups in Pine that they circulated in photocopied form back before there was a web to stick it on.

The one that ~~stole~~ quoted the usenet warning message about how this service might look free! but your message was going to computers throughout the world! And it would cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to post it! Are you sure you want to post it? Y/N

(leaving aside the twinge of nostalgia because I spent the entirety of the early 90s and my first failed graduate school career (no correlation, I swear) on that no-longer-existing server, I actually laughed out loud at seeing hundreds if not thousands in its proper context again.)

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Further updates

2010-08-07T21:49:10Z

I have watched an entire season of FNL in a day. This is not recommended if your emo is not very strong!!! Also, OH NO TIM RIGGINS! At, approximately, 8 million different occasions. Possibly every screen appearance.

My work project upgrade thing went swimmingly. Holy shit. HOLY SHIT.

How good are (baked, not fried) empanadas if reheated the next day? Because I seriously feel the need to make some right the hell now, but cannot eat a whole batch.

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