Sunday, September 30, 2001
13:08 ~
Finished Arrows of the Queen. I think it's the first of a trilogy, so now I need to get the rest. And I need more Tanya Huff. But if I order now, it might show up while we're on vacation. And the Amazon Japan order might already do that. Siiigh. So maybe I'll have to go in to Pandemonium and buy some more books.
Thursday, September 27, 2001
23:36 ~
Started Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey. And I don't think she ever used 'littles' in a book I've read before. It is /so/ annoying me, and only because of its overuse on PernMU*'s. That and candlemark are two terms they obviously got from Lackey. How you can confuse Lackey and McCaffrey, I /don't/ know. Lackey's actually good!
20:45 ~
I finished Blood Lines by Tanya Huff. It didn't end with a gate into hell or a demon. But there were similarities.. if I could only think of more general terms to put it that would encompass this ending and the gate into hell/demon thing.
And now.. for a quote..
"Ridiculous, Lucky Captain Rabbit King, Lucky Captain Rabbit King Nuggets are for the youth."
Wednesday, September 26, 2001
17:13 ~
Here's an OSC take on things, in which he mentions the WTC and bombing Afghanistan. Only this was more than a year ago.
12:01 ~
It's not the news that gets you, it's the personal stories. Here's one by a 13-year old who was in school near the WTC.
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
17:36 ~
Some observations:
* Sprinkles on my Boston Cream. Dunkin Donuts put red, white, and blue sprinkles on some of its donuts, including star-shaped sprinkles. They probably have gelatin in them. But no one thinks of the vegetarians when they're putting patriotic sprinkles on their donuts.
* Papa Gino's flag is still half-mast. Too lazy to go fix it? Or more respectful than everyone else?
* Flags all /over/ the gas station. And they're on top of the gas station. 'Joe, get up there with those flags or you're fired. And turned in to the government for being unAmerican!'
* A Confederate flag got removed from a classroom for being unpatriotic. It was just there for lessons on the Civil War. Here's the article. Is it unpatriotic to study our own history?
* A frightening poll. Scroll towards the bottom.
* I flew no flag. I wore no red, white, and blue (at least not intentionally). Will I be targetted by patriotic Americans for being unAmerican?
* History Item: Un-American Activities Committee.
* History Item #2: Japanese-American Internment Camps.
* Military enlistment is up. Are you defending your friends and family, or dealing out vengeance for your country?
Monday, September 24, 2001
17:43 ~
This is a URL I followed from Bloggerr's main page, so maybe you've seen it before. It sums up some of what I was feeling about the WTC and blogging. I think I'll dig around some and see what WTC-related blogs I can find. Here's the link:
"Blogs Capture More Personal Stories of Tragedy".
16:36 ~
Had to do this. Here's my Pirate Name.
Mad Jack Bonney
Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!
14:07 ~
Hurrah for hermaphroditic moose!
I finished The Merchant Prince: A Novel by Armin Shimerman and Michael Scott. It was pretty good. A bit different from usual sf fare. But I had some technical problems with it. He's given a translator and some other technology and somehow ends up with multiple copies of it. Though he couldn't have replicated it on his own, not without study. And also.. there's a diamond-making machine. Makes coals into diamonds. All well and good, but we've been able to do that for fifty years now. The results are industrial grade, for drill bits and whatnot, but we /can/ do it. No mention was made of this. I'm willing to buy that the diamonds this machine made were /really good/ ones, but you should at least give a nod to the fact that we can make diamonds. And Superman did it more impressively than a simple machine.
Network was down all morning. Very annoying. I'm down to reading.. oh, I'm done. I can place another order. Hrm.
Thursday, September 20, 2001
20:54 ~
Finished Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light by Tanya Huff. Good. Some m/m content. Except that now I've read 5 books by her and 4 of them involved a demon/devil and a gate into Hell at the climax. It's getting a little tiring. :> Although her angels are pretty. So I'm down to one book. I've got one pending shipment at Amazon. /Finally/. Only took twice as long as their supposed 3-4 weeks. Hmf.
Tuesday, September 18, 2001
22:42 ~
Finished Blood Trail by Tanya Huff. It was pretty good. About a family of werewolves. And of course about a vampire and an ex-cop, cuz that's what the entire series is about. So I /think/ that makes me down to finishing 2 before I can place an order.
10:28 ~
For those of you who were wondering what the Klingons in Enterprise would look like, here's a picture. For those who don't want to look, the Klingons look like Worf. Will we ever get an explanation for the two Klingon 'races'? I like my own theory. That the Klingons look like Worf (or at least closely similar to Worf) and it's just that 1960's television couldn't portray them properly.
Anyway, for those who looked at the above picture, here's a Smallville one. Notice any similarities? Look out, Clark, there's a Klingon after you! My money's on the Klingon.
Does that make Lex Deltan? Woo, slashy fanfic will abound in no time. Join the Smallville Slash Mailing List. Tell all your friends. Just please don't write any fic involving corn.
Sunday, September 16, 2001
11:55 ~
Oh yes, one other thing. I keep watching (at the movies and on television), hoping to see a glimpse of NYC with the towers intact. It feels like something forbidden whenever I think I did catch a glimpse of them. Like there's a national ban on showing anything that'll remotely remind people of what happened. Ebay banned all sale of /anything/ to do with the WTC. Even postcards. You can't stop Americans and others from cashing in on tragedy. They'll just use something other than Ebay. They'll just raise the price of something else besides gas.
Anyone who has ID4, pop it in the dvd player or vcr and indulge in the 'naughty' act of watching buildings be demolished by aliens.
11:47 ~
I finished Brightly Burning by Mercedes Lackey. It was good. It reminded me of why I went through a Mercedes Lackey period a few years ago. It also reminded me of how angsty her stuff is. Ah well. Considering I bought 5 books at the store the other day (and spent way too much on manga as well), I /think/ I'm down to finishing 3 books before I can place an Amazon order. But if I can go longer than that, that'd be good. Because I need the money for Florida.
And here's some more thoughts.
The skies were clear blue for several days. No clouds. Not even any jet trails. It was strange. When we saw a plane, it looked like a commercial jet, on Wednesday just before noon, that was also strange. Yesterday I saw two jets with bright pink trails. It was near dusk. I don't know if anyone can look at planes the same way again.
I kept thinking this was only the first strike. But now I'm thinking more along the lines of.. this was it. They'd planned this for years and this is it. And the ones who did this are dead. So who do we seek 'justice' (read: revenge) on? Terrorists who knew about it? That's probably the closest we'll get. Wiping out all terroroism, or however much is possible, will make everyone feel better. But it's something we should've done a long time ago. But the fact is, Americans just don't care until it happens to them. It took Pearl Harbor to get us to join WW2 and fight Hitler. That's pretty pathetic to me. We get to ride in at the last minute like a good guy on a white horse and wipe out the enemy. Just don't look too closely, because that white horse probably isn't white.
I shouldn't blog shortly after waking up, I think. So I'll stop now.
Friday, September 14, 2001
12:47 ~
Some random thoughts first. Going home yesterday, the sign outside the mall had finally been changed to something relevant. 'God Bless America'. K and I were discussing how that really was not the best choice of signage to put up, since it would be annoying and even offensive to some people. Apparently the mall authorities finally realized this, because this morning the sign read 'U ited We Sta d'. Whoever puts this sign up has had a problem with backwards N's in the past. We theorize they've got someone dyslexic putting them up. Today they've avoided the problem altogether by leaving the N's out.
We will recover. New towers or /something/ will be built in the WTC's place. It'll take a long time for the smoke to clear, for the rubble to be cleared, for bodies to be identified.
My first thought when K told us a tower had been hit by a plane was that the Empire State Building had been hit by a plane before. I was picturing some tiny 2-seater plane that got smushed against the building like a bug on a windshield. Or, at worse, like a bird that put a crack in the windshield. When I saw the first picture, I was shocked. There was a /hole/. I didn't imagine a plane could do that, not the type of plane I had in my mind. Once the second plane hit and we knew it was an attack, my feeling was.. they have some nerve. Don't they know what the President is going to do to them? You don't /do/ that to America. Not unless you want to be wiped off the face of the Earth. I wanted it. I still want it. I want the US to /smack/ whoever's responsible. Strongly. Effectively.
No, I don't want to see civilians get hurt. I also don't want to personally have to be the one dealing out 'justice'. And, you know, I'd get the same sense of satisfaction about /any/ successful retaliation. I don't need to see anyone die. I just need to know that terrorists have gotten the message that this is not something you do. I'm glad I'm not part of making the decision of how to retaliate. I don't want the responsibility. I don't want the guilt. Bush got more than he bargained for. So did Hillary and every other Senator, Congressman, military leader, everyone. I'm sure they're all wishing they could resign right now.
And, finally, I don't like this surge of hatred/fear for Arab countries, Arab people, Americans of Arab descent, for Islam. I don't like it. Pearl Harbor was an excuse to lock up Japanese-Americans in internment camps. Do most Americans know that? Remember it? Don't let us fall backwards in the progress we've made against discrimination and hate crimes.
/Also/, do /not/ get mad at other people because they're reacting differently from you. Some people will say things they don't truly mean, because they don't know how to react. Some people won't seem affected at all. And maybe they're not. There's nothing wrong with that. Don't tell other people how to feel. Don't tell other people how to think. Your reaction is no more right or justified than theirs.
And an unrelated note: B&N didn't have the Tanya Huff books I wanted, so I had to go to the sf&f bookstore instead. Got 3 Tanya Huffs, 1 Mercedes Lackey, and 1 Armin Shimerman. Considering the mail has been held up, this should keep me until I feel like chancing an Amazon order again.
Speaking of Amazon, go donate to the Red Cross. They need money as much as they need anything else (except blood).
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
21:44 ~
Re: Palestinians cheering. I don't condemn them for it. I'm not entirely sure when that video was taken, or what those people had heard. Most likely it was before the towers collapsed. It was certainly before anyone had had time to think about how many lives were lost. And most of the people in the video were kids. They just thought it was 'cool' and got caught up in the cheering, a mild form of mob mentality. It's very easy to get caught up in the mood of those around you. No, of course it's not the reaction you expect rational, mature human beings to have. But not everyone is a rational, mature human being. For the ones shooting guns in the air, /they/ should know better. But then, so should the terrorists have known better. People have different beliefs, and some people have /wrong/ beliefs. Wrong in the sense that they're in an overwhelming minority. If you hated America, wouldn't you cheer too?
Most of us aren't old enough to remember what it's like to /hate/ a country. Or even to /fear/ a country. We kicked butt in the last war. We kicked so much butt we could even feel guilty about how 'easy' it seemed. We haven't hated or feared anyone since Russia. And the height of that was before most of us (us being twenty-somethings) were born, or at least out of diapers.
So let them cheer. Their cheering shouldn't hurt us. We've already been hurt more than their laughter and shouts can ever do.
Now, condemn the media for making such a big deal of it. They kept showing it to us. Rubbing our noses in the cheering. It was /meant/ to rile you up. Rile up the country so that whatever Bush does, we'll be behind him.
Don't let the media tell you what to think and feel.
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
12:16 ~
This is probably the biggest thing that's happened in my lifetime. Bigger than the Gulf War. Bigger than the Challenger disaster. Bigger than any other bombing.
K first told us about it. Then we all went to the news sites trying to find more info. The news sites quickly got jammed. But if you were persistent, you could get through to see an update. Forget about live feeds though. Then our network behaved as usual, crashing randomly. It was /much/ more frustrating than usual.
Someone had a small black and white TV and we all crowded into his office to watch it. We got to see the second tower collapse.
We hear reports of closing things in Boston. The airport, of course, but also government buildings and any large targets. I keep hoping they'll send us home, but that's looking less and less likely. We came in early though, so we can leave soonish.
We hear things that aren't confirmed, or are later proven wrong. We heard they bombed the capitol. We heard of a 3rd explosion at a building near the Trade Center. Haven't heard anything about those two things since, so probably they were some panicky person reporting falsely. Or maybe someone mistook 'capital' for 'capitol', since the Pentagon's in the capital.
Was a very bad day to be a flight from Boston to LA. Makes me leery of flying in a few weeks, though at least I'm not going to LA. We'll have to get to the airport extra early, I'm sure.
I was going to go into the city today, but I changed my mind. The last thing I need is them closing the T with me stuck at Porter Square. I just want to get home and to a television.
It's very difficult to concentrate on work.
Lots of people I knew at college are in or near NYC. It's scared quite a few people. So far I haven't heard of anyone knowing anyone who was definitely in the towers though.
Monday, September 10, 2001
12:06 ~
IE is stubborn, isn't it? I told it to clear my history and my cache, /including/ (I thought), my cookies. But I didn't have to log into blogger just now. Sigh. Guess I'll have to do it the hard way next time.
Anyway, so far today, we've gone down at least 6 times. And that's only in the past 2.5 hours.
Saturday, September 08, 2001
17:27 ~
Re: 日本語.
I can read it in IE 4 only if I specifically select Japanese from View/Fonts. I never have to do that for Japanese websites. But, well, anyway, it does work. And not just at work. :)
04:29 ~
Finished Corsair by Chris Bunch. It was an interesting read, I guess, with a rather unique plot. But it was hard at times to tell who was speaking. Just because you /can/ continue someone's speech into a second or third paragraph, doesn't mean you /should/. Especially when your so-called paragraphs are one sentence long. There was a bit of amusement in the fact that there was a sailor named Shenshi. But the ending felt incomplete. And there was this great revelation at the end that wasn't surprising in the least. So, in short, nothing too special, so don't go out of your way.
Friday, September 07, 2001
16:05 ~
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Why it doesn't work in English IE with that pseudo-IME running, I don't know.
15:01 ~
People need to post to their blogs more often, so I have something to read at work. I remembered something this morning that I had meant to include in an earlier blog. The Assassin Fantastic anthology's picture is partly taken from the cover of one of Tanya Huff's books. I thought that was a neat little tidbit of information.
My tracker shows I haven't acquired any stalkers yet. Dang.
Thursday, September 06, 2001
15:13 ~
Seven. That's the minimum number of times the network's gone down today. That's how many times I've logged into my shell since I got to work. Which means the network might have come up and gone down again while I was actually working and not trying to log back into my shell. But still, that's more than once an hour. And sometimes the down times are longer than the up times.
Wednesday, September 05, 2001
14:00 ~
Re: Uber. There's nothing non-PC about it. It's just a German prefix. The objection to it stems from unpleasant associations with a certain person who shall remain nameless. For to name a thing is to give it power.
Tuesday, September 04, 2001
20:52 ~
I finished all but one story in Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis. I'm going to count it finished. That one story started out boring and is kinda long, so I'm not going to force myself to read it. *yaaawn* Okay, um.. so I think that means I've wiped out the 2 books that came from Amazon today already. So I can place another order. Still, I think I'll hold off.. try to anyway. I've already put a bunch of Tanya Huff books into my cart and chosen which ones I want next. So going through checkout would be so simple.
But I'll resist for one night. Let's see what to read next.
15:28 ~
Still reading short stories. One I read in Assassin Fantastic was by Tanya Huff (yay) and it turns out she's written some books about the two assassins in that short story (yay yay). I put all her books in my Amazon shopping cart, so now I have to decide which to save for later. But Amazon or IE or my network isn't cooperating.
I thought there was something else I wanted to say, but now I forget.
01:13 ~
Reading some short stories. Maybe I should work out a way so they total a book even if I haven't read an entire anthology, but just stories in several. Anyway, I /can/ place another Amazon order now, except for that one in transit. So I'd best resist 'til it shows up.
Monday, September 03, 2001
05:53 ~
Finished the book. Going to sleep.
Sunday, September 02, 2001
14:29 ~
We'll see if Blogger lets me post. I was trying to fix the archive problem, but Blogger's giving me an error when I try to save a new template. So feh. I'm reading The Wizard's Dilemma by Diane Duane. Reading her Young Wizard series books are easy. Reading the ones about the cats isn't so easy. Maybe I'll go back to try to finish the second one.. it's around here somewhere. /Anyway/, I couldn't wait 'til I'd finished it (since I'm only halfway through) until I posted about it. It's reminding me of the last Buffy season in some ways. The Tanya Huff book was reminding me of Buffy too. Something about the main character having a teenage younger sister... Anyway, Diane Duane, you rock. A minor character who likes anime /and/ a passing reference to Sailor Stars. Woo.
Okay, so Fire's Stone isn't OOP. I was thinking of Swordspoint. Turns out I /have/ Fire's Stone.. or should, since Borders shipped it to me months and months ago. Problem is, I don't think it made the move with me. So that's one more thing I need to look for when next I go back to my parents. Probably Thanksgiving.
And that's enough about that. I have a couple writing ideas, so I should, at the very least, probably write them down.
00:37 ~
Finished Blood Price by Tanya Huff. It's first in a series about a vampire and an ex-cop. Sort of.. Angel meets Forever Knight meets Highlander: Raven meets.. well, okay, so it's been done before. But that's okay, cuz it's cool. She's got strong, /interesting/ female characters, and isn't at all afraid of tossing random bits of m/m or f/f in here and there. Fire's Stone is supposed to have heavy m/m content, AFAIK, but it's out of print. :P So stupid, since it was published in 1990. It doesn't seem /that/ old.. though I suppose eleven years is quite a bit. Still, I'm pretty sure this series was recently reprinted, so I can hold out hope for a reprint of that in the near future. Maybe.
So I'm down to 1 more book to read before I can place another Amazon order. But only if I read it before the next shipment comes.
But I've been wanting to write. So I should try doing that /before/ starting another book I feel compelled to finish just so I can blog about it.
Really.