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| Saturday, May 10th, 2008 |
maggiemarmalade
|
7:41p |
AWESOMESAUCE!
AWESOME SAUCE Gerald and AWESOME SAUCE Dani got married today!
I am super sad I wasn't there to get rice in their ears and make them go deaf.
BUT say la vee.
I hope you enjoy your "vacation" in SENIC CHARLESTON.
Don't hurt yourselves.
;) <3,
Me. |
robin_d_laws
|
7:19p |
Tentacles Day Two  The morning begins with the HeroQuest preview and workshop, which winds up being all preview and hardly any workshop. A gratifyingly full room is present to hear me spill the detailed beans in on the evolution, philosophy and rules structures of the new version. The simpler, completely different implementation of extended contests seems to click immediately, confirming my hope that folks will find it instantly intuitive. Anything said in the seminar is public info, so if any attendees feel like blogging it in the days ahead, by all means be my guest.
Right afterwards came the replacement run for What’s That Game?, an event postponed from last night when appointed moderator David Scott failed to get through traffic on his way to the event. This morning David ducks out again, this time on grounds I can only characterize as general punkitude. So, troupers all, Lawrence “Loz” Whittaker, Mike Mason and I proceed sans moderator. For fifty minutes we present each other with obscure games we had been allegedly been reminiscing about the night before and then press for elaboration. Secrets of such Ebay rarities as What’s That In the Well?, Football Stadium Bleacher Collapse, Whizkids’ rock collecting ARG, and the Joe Bazooka collectible gum game are blithely revealed. Also discussed: the unsuccessful game designs of prominent Marxist leaders and the esoteric Amish origins of Dungeons and Dragons. No doubt the original RopeCon panel event on which this was based is seriously mangled in the process. The proceedings are audio recorded, God help us all, for posterity, and so may eventually pop up on the web. Moments after it ends, all three of us rush to our rooms to frantically jot down notes to make a real game out of The Meatibles.
In mid-event, Charlie Krank surfaces to present me with a plate of ganzducken, thus making good on his solemn culinary vow. It adds a level of delicious additional challenge to the already daunting improvisational task at hand.
All other con organizers take note: Tentacles has the best-designed guest badges ever. The badge is laminated, hangs from a lanyard—and is the same on both sides. Flipped Badge Syndrome is defeated! A small stroke of genius.
Events in the Masters Of Luck and Death freeform mirror the HeroQuest resolution mechanic:
Contest Framing
Opposed Ability Rolls
Resolution
Consequences
My panel on narrative structure in RPGs also played to a surprisingly full house. I mapped out the pass/fail structure that characterizes genre pieces and procedurals, discussing its applications to the branching world of game story-making. Borrowing a passage from the new HeroQuest, I illustrated this by breaking down that early bit of pulp adventure, Beowulf, in pass/fail terms. Although I got to the Q&A portion sooner than in the morning's panel, it was still more monologuing than I usually try to shoot for in a seminar situation. Tomorrow I expect to achieve balance with two completely question-driven panels, with those ever-reliable topics, GM Troubleshooting and Ask Robin. |
trishalynn
|
5:45p |
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matthigh
|
3:09p |
Gauging Clinton's path to victory -- when is 'it's over' really over? I'm a geek for numbers and stats (as if ya'll couldn't tell), so last night I sat down and sketched out exactly how the Democratic race and delegate count stand today. Conventional wisdom by just about every political wonk is that this race is pretty much over, even though Clinton did have a slim mathematical possibility of victory. So just how narrow is that path, really? Working out the numbers didn't lead to any big surprises, but it is interesting to see exactly where everything stands. As expected, in *every* scenario it really boils down the support of several dozen of the currently undeclared superdelegates. And in *every* scenario, Obama ends up with a plurality of the delegates, it's just a matter of exactly *when*. And how have those superdelegates been swinging? Well, check out the graph and see for yourself:  Here's how I see it all breaking down over the next few weeks. Hidden behind the livejournal cut because it's lots of detailed numbers that fill up the page: ( Details here )And there you have it -- even giving Clinton an optimistic outcome on the remaining pledged delegate contests, and giving her literally everything possible from Florida and Michigan, she still would need 62% of the remaining unpledged and uncommitted delegates to get the nomination. Under the most Clinton-friendly scenario, Obama STILL gets the plurality, and is closer to the majority. Quick summary: Obama Clinton Pledged delegates 1860 1697 Remaining contests +88 +129 Add FL and MI +91 +212 Total 2039 2019 (out of 2209 needed) For the remaining pledge delegates contests, this scenario is Clinton-optimistic. Clinton wins by 30-40% or more in WV, KY and PR, Obama wins by 10% or less in OR, MT and SD. Chances are Obama will outperform this scenario somewhat, but only time will tell. For the Florida and Michigan contests, this gives Clinton everything she wants and also everything possible, and counting all of the votes from those states fully and completely. What's left to reach that 2209 goal? Approximately 307 uncommitted and unpledged delegates. Obama has steadily been picking up roughly 10 a week, but Clinton netting only one or two a week. This pace is expected to pick up dramatically throughout the next few weeks since the race is almost over. Once the final primary is held on 6/3, expect nearly all of the superdelegates to have picked a side -- it's really a question of how many announce before that date, and how quickly they do it. What about a slightly more realistic scenario? Let's say the delegates split 28-17 for Clinton in the 2nd Michigan meeting on 5/17 (instead of the generous 45-0 I gave her above). Let's say Obama does a little bit better in WV, KY and OR, picking up 57 delegates instead of 53 from those states. Let's say he picks up 20-30 superdelegates in the next 10 days, Clinton nets plus five, and a 2-3 switch from Clinton to Obama. All of this is reasonable and realistic based on past performance. In this case, on the morning of May 21st, that 62% of the superdelegates that Clinton needs jumps to about 85%, and Clinton's path to victory gets even narrower. And depending on how quickly the remaining superdelegates announce after that date, that 85% just inches upwards until it passes the 100% mark around the first of the month, and it becomes mathematically impossible for Clinton at that point. So, there you have it. Forget about seating those delegates from Florida and Michigan -- even giving Clinton everything she can get, her path to victory is practically impossible. Not quite mathematically impossible, but we'll reach that threshold within a couple of weeks. Part of the reason why she is pushing the importance of "the popular vote" so much. If you add in the popular votes from Florida and Michigan AND she outperforms in WV, KY and PR AND those states have stronger-than-expected turnout AND popular votes from caucus states are excluded, then she can expect to surpass Obama in the popular vote total. In that case, we could end up in the ugly situation on June 3rd that Obama has the delegate plurality but Clinton has a slight edge in the popular vote, which she will take as a green light to fight tooth and nail through to the August convention. And the Democrats eat themselves to pieces Anyway, that's how I see it right now. But as someone said, "Overnight in politics is a lifetime", so anything is possible. Who knows what disaster or stupid non-issue we will be raising a fuss about a week from now? And for anyone who is in love with stats and numbers, a couple of excellent, non-partisan sites for tracking details on the delegate math: http://demconwatch.blogspot.comhttp://www.fivethirtyeight.comhttp://www.pollster.comhttp://www.realclearpolitics.com Current Mood: Geeky |
ldragoon
|
1:25p |
Fast Food Nation I finally got around to watching Fast Food Nation. I don't understand all the bad reviews it got -- the movie was excellent and featured an incredible ensemble cast: Greg Kinnear, Catalina Sandino Moreno (who was scintillating in Maria, Full of Grace), Bruce Willis, Kris Kristofferson, and Ethan Hawke, just to name a few. If you're interested, please take my advice and read the book first. Eric Schlosser co-wrote the screenplay for the movie, so it's not like the movie is a dumbed down, commercialized version of the book's message. It's a very accurate fictionalization of the themes and events Schlosser covered in the book. I just want people to have fair warning, because if the book is too graphic for you, you are not going to be able to make it through the movie. I also finally got my copy of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma from the library -- I have no idea what to expect, and I'll let you guys know what I think after I've finished it. I just finished Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World. It was excellent, and not what I was expecting. It's basically a Critical Thinking 101 class. The Skeptic's Toolkit chapter alone made it worth the while for me. The only downer? Now I'm bummed out all over again that he's dead. :( |
arcana_j
|
1:03p |
For the record... ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dragonluk is made of win and awesome. That is all. |
wintersweet
|
12:50p |
Hey, artists... I have a really stupid, n00b question for you: I know a lot of you work from imagination, but when you work from reference, what do you use? Live models? Photos of a model you've posed? Stuff you borrowed from Flickr or magazines? I know some people really frown on the latter, and I hate it when I see a painting on DeviantArt or somewhere that's an exact duplicate of a published photo (just with, like, fangs, or pointy ears, or tattoos or something added--pathetic!). But at the same time I feel like I could use some of these magazine scans I've saved up to get the anatomy right and what have you. Buuut...what if I also wind up looking like one of those people I can't stand? (Don't get me started on the pitfalls of working from photos--I know, I know. Even a really good artist like David Mack falls prey to that, flattened foreshortening and weird shadows and all. But working from a live model is not really practical most of the time.) Bluh. Current Mood:  confusedCurrent Music: Puropera Jitensha - Joe Hisaishi |
prettykitty_aya
|
2:44p |
|
wintersweet
|
12:30p |
Wordpress themes whitecrow0 has raised a good point about Talk to the Clouds--she says that theme is fairly common. If it is, I'd like to change it, because I'm always put off by sites that use generic themes. But I really love it and it fits the blog name, and I do NOT have the skills to make a similar layout myself. If you view a lot of blogs, what do you think? Is it cliched? I've only seen it one other place, which is somewhere in the Twitter.com documentation or login or something. There are so many beautiful layouts at http://m-cat.net/, but I have no idea whatsoever how to make them play nice with Wordpress. :/ Basically, failing someone coming over and teaching me how to do that, I need to find either an obscure WP theme or one that has a couple customizable graphical elements and isn't otherwise blah or annoying. I can spend days digging through themes, which is a bad thing... |
sirspamdalot
|
11:46a |
Ah, women. From 1961:  |
amegoddess
|
12:34p |
YAY, I post on Saturday when no one will see it! Sigh, I'm gearing up to update my website and it's going to be hell on Earth, I know it. I have a reasonable rough for the design of the site. Strangely I'm going to go back to a design similar to the one right before this one. Though with more color and art made for the design and a wordpress framework, so that I can update the thing easily. I'm planing to pre-build a few different designs so that I won't be sitting on the same look for two or three years. The main page will have my journal on it but it'll only have image links or thumbnails. All of the images will be moved to a gallery system that I fear I'm going to break wordpress in half to make. Crosses fingers. On the other hand, I'm also going to add shopping cart buttons to all of the images that aren't sketches so that I can maybe start selling prints of all this stuff I've made. Also having all the art and comics in the Gallery/store area will, I pray, make the site look more professional. As the images will no longer accompany posts with battering on, much like this one. =/ I'm also going to be removing some of the features that I thought I wanted when I started using Wordpress. The main one I'm tossing out is the calender... and the sidebar and the category links (well not completely they just won't be formatted the same way) and maybe some of the ads. Considering just how many posts I have on this beast of a site, the joy of fixing everything, is not something I'm looking forward to. Also I'm probably going to turn on comments and display them which means I have to hide a bunch of the comments that I already have and or edit some of the ones with personal info, or the ones that ask me for porn... or curse me out in Spanish. =D But here's some of the art that I'm working up for the site design.  "People think that cats dream of running hard and fast just to feel the ground move under their feet. But Snowy dreamed of waves and ripples and swimming in the sea with goldfish, gliding gracefully with the current. The fish made it all sound so amazing, he didn't know why his human kept throwing things at him when he tried to go swimming." Or there's always the alternate write up for this image of: "Diana likes cats! White is easy to color! I R good arter!" O_o |
kabael
|
10:18a |
I got 'em
Tickets for Nine Inch Nails. I has them.
On the floor, no less. It's gonna be awesome. |
maggiemarmalade
|
8:45a |
Who with tell the people? Who Will Tell the People? - New York Times"Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America."
Xposted from thinkradical - |
maggiemarmalade
|
11:40a |
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trishalynn
|
9:04a |
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sonjaaa
|
3:13a |
Facialbook
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wintersweet
|
12:04a |
New blog My new blog, which is from a teacher's perspective rather than being written to help students do self-study, is up and running! Talk to the Clouds is for anybody teaching ESL or EFL (TESOL), and, I suppose, anyone who wants to know more about my professional life. ;) I considered making an LJ mirror using a Wordpress plugin, but I don't think there'll be that much interest--so I made ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) talktotheclouds. If you comment on the LJ feed I probably won't see it, though. Tomorrow I have to figure out why Wordpress is insisting on putting the links to my Amazon Astore of books for teachers and Tora Anson (ESL tutor in Silicon Valley) in with the blogroll. I put them in a NEW "link category" called Other Links, but they just got mashed in there anyway. If you know how to fix this, let me know. I'm going to bed! Current Mood:  hopefulCurrent Music: Fingers - SEAT BELTS |
| Friday, May 9th, 2008 |
wintersweet
|
11:33p |
|
kabael
|
10:55p |
the internet hurts sometimes
I just saw a guy dressed as a fuzzy shark fucking an old, fat women on a fishing boat...
srsly, Internet. WTF? |
ldragoon
|
10:23p |
Dippy Mushy Stuff
This is my favorite part of the movie version of Rent, which I watch way too often. It just kills me every time when the camera pans around the Life Support group and the chairs start emptying.
I was going to school in Philly when Rent was first making the rounds. I remember walking past all the kids sleeping out on the sidewalk on Broad Street, in front of the theater Rent was playing at. They were hoping to get the free seats that were reserved at each show for people who couldn't afford tickets.
Rent closes on Broadway this September.
|
| Saturday, May 10th, 2008 |
chrisarrant
|
12:07a |
|
| Friday, May 9th, 2008 |
kabael
|
9:17p |
not all men put their pants on one leg at a time
|
kethylia
|
11:11p |
Great music makes everything better.
This unbelievable vintage 1997 performance of "Honey Bun" from South Pacific by Stephanie J. Block has helped make the final push to twenty-five pages tolerable.
Well, if I thought Block was amazing before (and you bet I did--I went to see Wicked earlier this year for a second time just to hear her live)...my estimation of her abilities apparently goes nowhere but up. Vaudeville just isn't something that anyone can do, but she owns this song in an utterly convincing fashion. Might I go so far as to say that she does it better than the movie? Bet she worked her @$$ off to perfect that choreography...
Anyway, it's hilarious gender-bending, cross-dressing fun. Watch it. Now. |
prettykitty_aya
|
8:59p |
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matthigh
|
7:22p |
Updated bits and pieces Just an update on various bits and pieces from previous livejournal entries: - The main picture on my "Montgomery Woods State Park" entry a couple days ago is displaying as "currently unavailable" for some reason. The photo that I meant to display is here:  - Tuesday Night Election Results: Final certified results from Indiana came in, and Clinton actually did eke out a victory by about 11,000 votes - a little less than 1%. Turns out the Lake County officials who held up the final results until way after midnight had been basically locked in a room counting absentee ballots the entire day, purposely avoiding election news coverage, and simply did not realize they were keeping the entire nation on pins and needles until someone stuck their head in and started screaming. They then dropped everything to count and release the electronic machine ballots (which only took a matter of minutes) and got those out quickly before returning to hand-counting the absentee ballots, which takes forever. - It seems the tone of the campaign has indeed changed, now that just about every reasonable person agrees that Obama has this thing wrapped up. Clinton is still fighting tooth and nail for any possibility, but it's really more a matter of hope than expectation at this point. About the only way Clinton could win at this point would be if Obama had some sort of Chappaquiddick moment. Today Obama picked up nine superdelegates, bypassing Clinton by the only metric she ever had a lead in. - That being said, I really do hope that Clinton remains in the race for the next few weeks. As one cable TV pundit put it, if she had dropped out immediately after her NC/IN debacle, it would have left all of her supporters (and she has plenty) bitter and angry and feeling disenfranchised. There would have been lots of loose ends, lots of burnt bridges left burnt. Instead, she needs to remain in the race to essentially "talk down" her supporters, very slowly and deliberately work towards healing some of the rifts that have developed. And make sure that the self-disenfranchised Florida and Michigan voters get assuaged. Honestly, I sort of see some of that happening -- I've paid pretty close attention to exactly what Hillary and most of her surrogates have been saying since Tuesday night, and the level of discourse has changed dramatically. Most of the hardcore unseemly attacks directed against Obama have dropped off (especially from Hillary herself), and the Hillary campaign is mostly trying to focus on a more Hillary-positive tone. This can only help Obama in November, and hopefully she will maintain a mostly-positive tone over the next 2-4 weeks before the delegate math goes from nearly-impossible to entirely-impossible. Despite all the vitriol being venomously spewed back and forth, the Democratic party needs to reach some sort of unity before November. - The TV that went on the fritz last week has been replaced by a similar low-end model -- in fact, the lowest-end equivalent I could find. Cheap, yes, but I really should have sprung for a slightly better model. It's an Emerson CR202, really inexpensive but functional. Sort of - the tuner is a bit flaky, and it has a tendency to not quite lock onto a channel every once in a while. I can work around that by going up/down a channel and back (and then it's usually fine), so it is a minor annoyance. Still, given a choice to do it all over again I probably would spring for the next-up model for $20-40 more. - Happy Mission Accomplished Day. Interesting to also note that Bush's approval rating among Republicans has also steadily drifted downwards as well. In late 2001, Bush had an unfrickenbelievable 99% approval rate, and since then it's been a steadly line downwards to 60% today. Among all Americans (Repubs, Demos and Indeps combined), it's hovering at 27%. But don't worry, the Long National Nightmare is almost over! - That stupid little mystery rock I found out in the Hill Country SNA? Still have no clue what it is (not that it's important at all, really), but I have a new idea. I also recently visited on old volcanic plug just outside of Uvalde - apparently there was some volcanic activity in southern Texas about 60 million years ago, which left a line of volcano remnants stretching across the Balcones Escarpment. (Pilot Knob just southeast of Austin is another example). Could this be some sort of volcanic rock? My other theory: some sort of half-melted brick or tile from one of the nearby ranches. - I also now have a new favorite Texas park: Lost Maples State Natural Area, just north of Vanderpool in Bandera County. It's known for its stand of maple trees, which can only exist there due to a rather unusual combination of geography and geology (everything else for miles and miles around is the standard near-desert scrub, mesquite trees, cactus and hardy pines). The park is packed in October and November when the trees turn golden yellow, orange and red (there's not much fall color in this part of the country), but this time of the year it's practically empty. While the trees along the river canyons were pretty nice, I was gobsmacked by some of the karst topography - huge limestone overhangs, carved-out canyons, fern-lined riverbeds. I got plenty of pictures, which I'll get around to uploading eventually (have many more before I get to that point, alas). Well worth the trip. But it's not like I drop in any time, four-hours round trip of driving plus twenty bucks in gas. - Other than that, live continues apace. Still waiting to be discovered by some long-lost rich uncle (a la Brewster's Millions), hope springs eternal. |
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sad
working hard! sort of. >_>