Ron's Info-Closet Annex
The online extension of Ron's Info-Closet.
Book links are usually to my Powell's affiliate program; game links are usually to Funagain Games, and benefit the Games to the Rescue Project.
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Ron Hale-Evans
rwhe@ludism.org
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Marty's milestone: Marty had her 40th birthday this week. She took it calmly, unlike how I took my 30th... I rather improbably found for her a book that was not only a Jane Smiley novel she hadn't read, but also about Kentucky horse country: Horse Heaven (2000). I also bought her Sotheby's Concise Encyclopedia of Glass, and I made her a deck of 3x5" cards redeemable for 33 favours such as shutting up about my latest obsession for the rest of the day, or taking out all the garbage in the house right now. Each favour was worth $10^15 ("a million billion dollars" being the traditional offer for a favour in these parts), so altogether the coupons were worth $3.3 x 10^16 -- the most expensive present I've ever given.
The fam had a big party on Marty Gras Observed, which was Friday, 4 April (Marty's actual birthday is 30 March). Corn dogs and pineapple upside-down cake, yum. People shouldn't worry so much about getting old. Youth is valued in our culture so highly because death is always waiting. When we're emortal, it will be considered much cooler to be 200 years old than to be 20.
Tea brewer: Melinda sent me a belated Santanalia present: a teeli best medium tea-brewing basket. (See photo above.) This is a little stainless steel gizmo that brews loose tea leaves in hot water. We have lots of loose tea at work, and we even have a communal mesh basket, but mine is better, because it's big, it hooks onto a cup instead of dangling from a chain, and it's mine, so I can take it back to my desk and let my tea brew as long as I want.
Work week: Speaking of work, I had a great week. One of my friends there, whom I had thought was avoiding me, turned out just to have been preoccupied. Further, I'm kicking ass on the release notes for the latest release of our Bluetooth protocol stack and profiles. The release notes weren't bad before by any means, but I've come up with a couple of innovations to organise them, add more data to them, and make them more usable and useful. Plus, I've been working on them non-stop. My manager recently said that the release notes are the most important document in a given release, so he's happy with them too.
Revamp at last: I finally completed the revamp of the front page of the Center for Ludic Synergy. Whew.
Weirdly popular: "Weird games" are catching on at Seattle Cosmic. This week, I brought Ploy and Sly back, and other people spontaneously asked to borrow them. We had three "weird games" going at once at one point: the two just mentioned, and Ad Acta, which I brought at my friend Chad's request.
I'm not knocking all that German games have done for the hobby, but there are people who are just snobs about them. I'm working on a gamer filksong called "German Game" to the tune of "Boston Band" by Jim's Big Ego.
Small realisation: I realised that I don't need to constantly take my emotional temperature and "medicalise" my every state of consciousness. If I feel down for five minutes, it does not mean I've plunged into the black tarn of depression again. I might just be in a bad mood.
Maybe now I can be a little less self-absorbed. Stop smirking.
New software: OK, I guess this is a Sunday Seven. I installed Thokbook, which lets me catalog my library just by entering ISBNs. Cool! I'm hoping it will help Marty with her inchoate bookselling business too. I also installed the latest version of Gaim, which is finally working with Yahoo! again, and I got my first taste of BitTorrent. Oh, and Keith Hautala ripped Songs of Couch and Consultation by Katie Lee from my vinyl LP for me.
Anything else? Probably. Busy week.
Ron
Entered 21:46 [/personal/friday5] permalink
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