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May 11th, 2030

04:14 am - See how popular this journal is . . . visitors have read my LiveJournal since September 2003 Current Mood: pleased Current Music: "Popular" (from the musical "Wicked")

(26 seeds eaten | Eat a pomegranate)

November 30th, 2009

11:58 pm - Epic NaNo fail is epic It seems I've managed to outdo last year's NaNoWriMo fail. I only managed 13 words this year. I blame computer fail. (And MS Word trial version fail -- didn't get a proper installation done of Word until after Black Friday, when I picked up a version of MS Office on sale. Trial version died after just a few uses of any of the programs in Office.) Plus taking care of my Second Life business. Not to mention the fact that I suck at deadlines. Oh well. Current Mood: disappointed Current Music: "So Well, Oh Well" by Lesion Tags: potterverse, writing

(1 seed eaten | Eat a pomegranate)

November 26th, 2009

10:40 am - Omnomnomnomnomnom day Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it. May you enjoy your meal, whether it be vegan, vegetarian or meat-based. Current Mood: hungry Current Music: "Food Glorious Food" ("Oliver" soundtrack) Tags: food, television

(Eat a pomegranate)

November 20th, 2009

11:02 pm - "New Moon" in under 100 characters Saw "New Moon" -- police were on scene for crowd control at the movie theater. Mopey Bella is mopey. Emo Edward is emo. Nomable Jacob is nomable. Omnomnomnom. :F Current Mood: mellow Current Music: "Das Tier In Mir (Wolfen)" by E Nomine Tags: books, film, vampires

(Eat a pomegranate)

November 4th, 2009

11:38 pm - On being a part of political history On Tuesday November 3, 2009, political history was made in the United States. Dan Halloran was elected to the 19th City Council district in New York City, the first ever publicly pagan elected official in America. But he isn't a Democrat, as many might think -- he's a Republican. I am proud to say that I helped in his campaign, doing phone-banking, handing out palm-cards, acting as a poll watcher and verifying the vote totals on election night. And I am even more proud that my party, the Republican party, stood by him when he was scurrilously attacked because of his religion, by his opponent's political sponsor's newspaper. (See here -- 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 -- for some of what was brought up during the race.) At the victory party I made a point of going up to Queens County Republican Party Chair Philip Ragusa and personally thanking him for supporting Dan Halloran when he was attacked and he said, "Of course we would!" I have never been prouder to be a member of the Republican party than I am now. Current Mood: ecstatic Current Music: "Sprit Waltz" by Green Crown

(Eat a pomegranate)

November 2nd, 2009

11:53 pm - An American honor killing There has been a confirmed honor killing in the United States of America. Excerpted from the article linked above: PHOENIX (Nov. 2) - A young Iraqi woman whose father allegedly hit her with his car because she had become too Westernized died from her injuries Monday after laying in a coma for nearly two weeks. Noor Faleh Almaleki, 20, underwent spinal surgery and had been in a hospital since Oct. 20, when police say her father ran down her and her boyfriend's mother with his Jeep as the women were walking across a parking lot in the west Phoenix suburb of Peoria. At a court hearing over the weekend in Phoenix, county prosecutor Stephanie Low told a judge that Almaleki admitted to committing the crime. "By his own admission, this was an intentional act and the reason was that his daughter had brought shame on him and his family," Low said. "This was an attempt at an honor killing." Family members had told police that Almaleki attacked his daughter because he believed she had become too Westernized and was not living according to his traditional Iraqi values. To say that I am beyond appalled is an understatement. For years it has been known that these killing occur in Muslim countries. As people from there have migrated to Western democracies, they have taken this horrific custom with them, as reports have surfaced in Europe and the UK of honor killings, although authorities have tried to hush them up, given the potential for racial and religious tension present in these cultures, whose Western values are butting heads with the Islamic mores of a sizable immigrant population. Now this type of murder has happened in the US. Recently there was a news item about a girl of Middle-Eastern descent who had run away from home, since she feared being killed by her family for having converted to Christianity. The judge in that case sent her home. In light of what has occurred today, that judicial decision may have been very unwise. In the United States, we have freedom of religion. That freedom does NOT include the freedom to kill daughters. Current Mood: enraged Current Music: "Lilies" by Jamie Fessenden Tags: death

(4 seeds eaten | Eat a pomegranate)

November 1st, 2009

05:54 am - Once more into the fray, armed only with a pen I've decided to try doing NaNoWriMo again,even though my last two years' efforts were laughable in the extreme. I've been wanting to add to some of the Potterverse fic story arcs I've started for a while, but I've been distracted by other things that were more pressing. Even if I only get a story or two out of the effort, it'll still be worth it to me, even if the word count falls far short of the 50,000 NaNoWriMo goal. I'm planning on writing some Fenmione, Lumione, Snirius, Snucissa, Dramione and Snenrir as well as Peter/Luna, Draco/Severus, Draco/Fenrir and Fenrir/Fleur. Appearances by Remus, Nymphadora and the Lestranges are also planned, as well as a fair amount of Tommy-time. Some stories will be gen, others . . . will not be. ~~ waggles eyebrows suggestively at readers ~~ For those who wish to follow my progress, my author page is here. Current Mood: creative Current Music: "Willkommen im Nichts" by Eisbrecher Tags: potterverse, writing

(2 seeds eaten | Eat a pomegranate)

October 31st, 2009

09:40 pm - Introducing Bellatrix the Netbook Since Harry the Laptop died a few days ago, I've been shopping around for a new computer, to act as a portable backup solution in case Lucius has a problem or is no longer able to be used as a mobile computer. I like Narcissa the Netbook, since she's small (8.9"), but unfortunately the small size of her hard drive is very limiting, since it's only 12 GB, partioned into a 3-ish GB C drive and a 7-ish GB D drive by the manufacturer and no way to manipulate the size of those partitions. (Some programs need to have parts on the C drive, but there's no room for them there, so they can't be installed. And what's on there already is working a bit wonky because the C partition is pretty much stuffed right now.) So since the current generation of netbooks is just a bit bigger than Cissy physically, but with specs similar to what Harry had, I decided to get a netbook. After going to a few places, I found a nice bundle of netbook, wireless mouse and bus-powered DVD burner, so I bought that today as my Samhain present to myself and will be naming the new computer Bellatrix, to keep with my current Potterverse computer naming convention, since she's small like Narcissa but very powerful, especially for her size, and has a lot of stamina, since with a full charged battery she can go for almost 8 hours, twice as long as most other portable computers on the market. And yes, she is black, for her case color. ( Here are Bellatrix's specs ) Current Mood: chipper Current Music: "Zeichen der Venus" by Eisbrecher

(Eat a pomegranate)

October 26th, 2009

02:57 pm - It's Samhain now, isn't it? -- Part 2 Found out today another friend has kidney cancer. She'll be getting most if not all of the affected organ removed. Her other one has kidney stone damage, so the doctors will salvage what they safely can of the cancerous one in an attempt to keep her from having to be on dialysis. It seems like folks in my life are dropping left and right. :( Current Mood: depressed Current Music: "Dark Passage" by Sintz

(1 seed eaten | Eat a pomegranate)

October 25th, 2009

06:06 pm - It's Samhain now, isn't it? Just learned Isaac Bonewits has cancer. Quite a shock to hear this news. Also just learned a Second Life friend has died of a heart attack in real-life. I did his SL handfasting a year or two ago. Samhain is in full swing it seems. :-/ Current Mood: surprised Current Music: "Closing" (from "Glassworks") by Philip Glass Tags: death, second life

(3 seeds eaten | Eat a pomegranate)

October 17th, 2009

09:55 am - A thought for wannabe celebrities "Talent is God-given; be humble. Fame is man-given; be thankful. Conceit is self-given; be careful." - John Wooden Current Mood: pensive Current Music: "I Am A Giant" by Lesion Tags: line of the day

(Eat a pomegranate)

October 13th, 2009

11:59 pm - Harry the Laptop is dead MS Windows update killed the XP partition of Harry the Laptop so badly it won't even boot up into safe mode, much less boot normally. It was perfectly fine before the update, and there were no problems with the update installation. Something similar happened a while back with Harry's Vista partition, but I managed to get that so it boots and stays up for a while at least, but I'd been using the XP partition exclusively ever since then. So I can still boot Harry, at least for a while, so I can try to slurp his data into an external drive and transfer it to Lucius, where I'm on right now. Right royal pain in the butt to do that, though. I don't know if Harry is fixable or not, but I'll be looking at getting another computer in the immediate future, since I want to have a fully-functional backup portable computer in case Lucius bites the dust. Narcissa is nice, but the small hard drive she has limits her usefulness greatly. I'll be looking at various netbooks, since their prices have dropped since Windows 7 is about to arrive in stores in a few days and their specs are as good as or better than Harry's were. Harry has been a "problem child" since I got him, constantly dropping dead for no discernible reason. I'd still like to keep him going, though, if possible, but right now it looks like there will be a new computer arriving very soon on my network. Current Mood: pissed off Current Music: "Oh Well, So Well" by Lesion

(2 seeds eaten | Eat a pomegranate)

October 9th, 2009

09:49 am - President Dolittle wins the Nobel Prize Seeing this news gave me a real "WTF?!?" moment -- seems the rest of the world has also drunk the Obama kool-aid, not just the majority of the US voting populace. This AP article summarizes the current President's accomplishments -- or more accurately, the lack thereof. Me, I'd like to see some friggin' results from the guy, not almost 10% unemployment rates almost a year after he was elected and 9 months after he got into office. :-/ Obama -- no we can't. :P Current Mood: pissed off Current Music: "Taub-Stumm-Blind" by Eisbrecher

(Eat a pomegranate)

September 25th, 2009

11:37 pm - Pagan schmooze site Had a nice long phone chat with an old friend who's in town for a short while. He told me about a pagan social networking site called PaganSpace, sort of like MySpace for pagans. I'm a bit adverse to joining yet another social networking site, but I decided to make a profile there, so feel free to send me a friend request if you are there too. Current Mood: cheerful Current Music: "The Arrival and the Reunion" by Dead Can Dance

(Eat a pomegranate)

September 18th, 2009

11:36 pm - Lights, camera, action! Today I bought my first ever video camera. I've been wanting one for quite a while, but was underwhelmed by the quality of the output, since I wanted something that would look like film in terms of the level of detail captured. Since high definition is now fairly standard, I've finally found something that suited me, at least to use as a starter video camera, so I can try my hand at film-making, something I've also wanted to do for a long time. ( Here are the video camera's specs, for those interested ) I also bought a 8GB memory card for it, although it takes up to a 32GB one -- store was out of the larger capacity ones, but I can pick one up later on. 8GB should be enough to use for a start. I should probably also get a 0.5 or 1 TB portable drive too, since working on video projects will suck up an enormous amount of storage space on my hard drives. Plus I need to install Adobe Premiere Video Suite on Lucius since the computer it had been installed on has been pushing up daisies for a while. I have a few ideas for video projects already. I guess my accounts at YouTube and Funny or Die will actually have original content sometime in the not-too-distant future . . . Current Mood: creative Current Music: "The Voice Within (Dark Inception)" by Sintz Tags: film

(Eat a pomegranate)

September 16th, 2009

09:32 pm - Celebrating my LJ-versary Six years and 714 posts ago, I made my first entry in this LiveJournal. When I started it, it was almost an afterthought, since I did most of my blogging then on Blogger or DeadJournal. Now, it has become my primary blog. I'd like to thank everyone who reads my scribblings, especially those who leave comments -- your participation is a large part of why I have continued this for so many years and why I enjoy it as much as I do. Current Mood: nostalgic Current Music: "Song of Persephone" -- The Violets Tags: writing

(4 seeds eaten | Eat a pomegranate)

September 11th, 2009

05:16 pm - My story is a scar A wound may leave a mark, but a scar shows healing has occurred. Current Mood: melancholy Current Music: "Memorare" -- The Crüxshadows Tags: death, line of the day

(Eat a pomegranate)

September 2nd, 2009

09:25 am - Surreally silly Stockholm syndrome Zachary Quinto shows his humorous side in this delightfully demented, sweetly psycho and appallingly adorable NWS short film. HOSTAGE: A Love Story with Zachary Quinto from Zachary Quinto Current Mood: amused Current Music: "Sinnerman" -- Nina Simone Tags: film

(Eat a pomegranate)

August 20th, 2009

01:23 pm - Lokean financial reporting Today's Stock Report Helium was up. Feathers were down. Paper was stationary. Fluorescent tubing was dimmed in light trading. Knives were up sharply. Cows steered into a bull market. Pencils lost a few points. Hiking equipment was trailing. Elevators rose, while escalators continued their slow decline. Weights were up in heavy trading. Light switches were off. Mining equipment hit rock bottom. Diapers remained unchanged. Shipping lines stayed at an even keel. The market for raisins dried up. Coca Cola fizzled. Caterpillar stock inched up a bit. Sun peaked at midday. Balloon prices were inflated. Scott tissue touched a new bottom. Batteries exploded in an attempt to recharge the market. Current Mood: amused Current Music: "O Fortuna (Nebulas)" by Sintz

(Eat a pomegranate)

August 19th, 2009

03:06 pm - An article that makes me proud to be an elephant I just came across a New York Times article on the lawyer who is bringing a challenge to California's Proposition 8, which outlaws same-sex marriage. Going against popular stereotype, Theodore B. Olson is a prominent and well-respected conservative member of the Republican party. He also has a good track record for cases he has argued before the Supreme Court, having won 44 out of 55 of them. Like myself, he is a libertarian conservative, a member of the wing of the party that hasn't gotten much attention lately, by dint of the neo-cons grabbing most of the media's attention. One of the things that I liked the article pointing out was that other prominent conservative Republicans besides Mr. Olson are supporters of same-sex marriage, such as California Governor Schwarzenegger and former Vice President Dick Cheney, while liberal Democrat President Obama opposes it, much to the dismay of the members of the GLBT community who worked so hard to get him into office. If Mr. Olson is successful in arguing his challenge to the law's constitutionality on the grounds of equal protection, then same-sex marriage will be legal all across the United States. I hope he succeeds, since I would love to see some of my friends be able to marry their partners and enjoy the same legal and financial benefits of matrimony that my heterosexual friends enjoy. Current Mood: bouncy Current Music: "Mann Gegen Mann" by Rammstein

(Eat a pomegranate)