- "Permutation" by Amon Tobin
- "Dust to Dust" by Steve Roach & Roger King
- "Below the Waste" by The Art Of Noise
- "Substrata" by Biosphere
- "Aquarello" by Hans Joachim Roedelius
- "Slider" by Bruce Kaphan
- "The Golden Wire" by Andy Summers
- "Black Tie, White Noise" by David Bowie
- "The Mix" by Kraftwerk
- "Bloodline" by Recoil

He actually appointed himself perpetual censer, and used to go around Rome swinging a brass ball on a chain, scattering incense everywhere he went.

They used to call him "Fumidus". Because his personal icon was a bear, he later became the symbol of the US Forest Service's fire-fighting efforts. They even named an orphaned brown bear after him.

#6: I am trying to make some sort of Bujoldish pun about Jackson's Whole, but I can't think of one; can everyone just pretend that I have done so and it was awfully funny?

("And it's free; only a dollar.")

There's breastses on the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow...

It was the trilingual pun that had me ROTFL.

Daniel "Dsquared" Davies was in North Wales at the time and claims that he is detectably radioactive as a result. Me, I've never dared to find out.

"Always moving forward because we can't find reverse..."

Again? I heard it once, ten years ago or more. And I still can't get the damn thing out of my head at times like this...

It was a trilingual pun?

Huh. Must brush up on my Finnish.

I know this because my descendant (Hereziark m3, the new model with the laser-guided missile-launcher attachment) was sent back in time with a humor-impairing gas to release into your home's ventilation system at the critical moment, preventing you from coming up with the future-killing pun. He left me a note, explaining it all before leaving (and the little punk drank all my beer too!).

It was all for the best, ajay.

What year was Heather Mills born? He may have been right after all...

Something about a vambrace, and some guppies?

"May be innocent, may be sweet... ain't half as nice as rotting meat."

Also circa '85.

(that's what happens when you clean the house)

*groan* That gives a whole new meaning to "beta software."

My son turned 21 two weeks ago Saturday, which was two weeks after his 19-year-old sister came home from her first year of college. If there are three other adults living with me, why am I in change of cleaning the microwave?

"It's life Jim, but not as we know it, not as we know it, not as we know it. It's life, Jim, but not as we know it, not as we know it, Jim!"

Dammit, it's been veritable weeks since I've had that thing as an brainworm, and I'll even take back "Raised on Robbery" in exchange, although my brain is not up to the speed of Joni Mitchell's articulation.

Thread crossing alert!

So much for my GCSE Finnish and A-level Temporal Mechanics.

Also, in 1985, my brother was born. It was a sad Christmas because Mom was still in the hospital, but hey, baby brother! Dad didn't brush my hair all week, and I think we meant to eat Christmas dinner at McDonald's... but it was closed. I don't remember a bit of this; I was almost two years old.

Sorry...every time I see "In A.D. xxxx" my Zero Wing reflex kicks in...

Zig?

Because there's a secret ritual initiation one has to go through these days in order to clean microwaves* and you're clearly the only one in the house who's had the initiation.
If it weren't for all the temporal paradoxes in this thread, you'd probably find it easier to remember the initiation. There's a secret handshake and everything.
Do you recall anyone handing you a can of cleaner and saying something like "Hic est Bon Ami; nondum abradet"?

*and lots of other things.

How a hamster can save you e-mail trouble about a new book titled: The Hamster Revolution: How to Manage Your E-mail Before it Manages You.

I hope the multiple links are ok.

Firefighters Rescue Hamsters in Eagle Lake, MN

There were also some buzz (about 20 hits on Google News) about the Man Hospitalized After Hamster Attack (that link has a cute picture) story which was mentioned in Open Thread 84.

...Le Guin's The Latte of Heaven...

Wasn't that the story about the canonization of Howard Schultz?

(YMCA summer day camp exhausted me because it was like living in a pep rally. You had to have SPIRIT! ALL! THE! TIME! Even though it was 95 degrees and so humid you couldn't breathe.)

So my question: What kind of pocket knife would you recommend, and why?

For simple cutting, I've carried generic pocket knives, the kind you can get at a local store. When I've wanted two blades plus a screwdriver and maybe a small saw-like blade, I've carried a Victorinox "Swiss Army" knife. Careful: those can become so packed with stuff that you won't want to carry it in a pocket. When I've needed the next step up in tools, like when I've wanted pliers plus files plus etc. for when I'm doing field demonstrations, I've gone with a Leatherman. Their Wave in particular is full-featured enough to be useful without being too bloated, and fits nicely on your belt.

[1] As a followup to that thread, the adhesive joining the ivory to the blade body on my Frost Bulldog finally gave out a while back...I haven't got around to repairing it yet.

Me, for the last... thirty years? at least? I've carried a Victronix with two cutting blades, scissors, a phillips screw driver, a magnifying glass, and a corkscrew, all of which I use constantly, and an awl, hook disgorger, can and bottle openers which I never use. Unfortunately the things I need come bundled with the ones I don't, sort of like TV cable packages. I'm on my second one, and it needs replaced because I've broken the side that holds the wonderful little tweezers, which I also use constantly, bent the scissors a little, and somewhat straightened the corkscrew.

Don't get a knife without a lanyard ring; they get lost less easily if you've got a way to tie them down. Mine, recently, has grown a tiny 1M tape and an LED light, and the cluster is of more use than the car's tool box.

In a perfect world, they'd put thee things together as custom arrays.

This is just the sort of thing I keep in my purse for the demands of daily living. I don't use it in my work; I'm a baker and have a variety of tools at my disposal there. And I don't have a job or hobbies that cause me to need pliers or small electronics tools or other things that people like to have on their multi-tools or pocket knives.

I'm sure there's a model out there that will match up with the way you want to use it.

If you want to, you know, cut things, I'd suggest that you choose a knife with a lockback function, so you can't accidentally close it on your fingers. I used to use Buck knives, which were very good quality and lock back.

Considering my overwhelming grace*, Buck knives are one of the major reasons I'm not currently known as Abi Nine-Fingers.

-----
* none at all

Sorry!

It was also the year my family bought its first home computer. It was made by Epson and ran Valdocs and Peachtext and used 5 1/2 inch floppies.

It was the first new appliance my family had bought since 1969. We still had the black and white tv my parents bought to watch the moonwalk, a 1969 Chevrolet Biscayne and the Maytag washer and dryer and GE stove and whirlpool refridgerator my parents bought when they moved into the apartment in 1969.

You're most welcome. At the risk of excercising my penchant for geeky overhelpfulness, another way you can describe lines and dresses is by the specific cut and waistline. So you can say things like "I'm looking for something with a Basque waistline," (that's the kind of starting-at-the-waist-narrowing-to-a-point waist seen on some dresses from the 18th century, as well as in certain mid-Victorian-era dresses) "and a square neckline, and a very full skirt."

A good dressmaker should know what all these terms mean.

I don't know if this is what you're looking for, of course, I've chosen a sort of stereotypical, generic mid-18th-c. set of ideas, and expressed them very vaguely. Here's a nice resource for the entire century, with a good overview of the styles and silhouettes.

damn

I turned to the several other people in the room and said, "Look, it's generic potato chips! Are you all too young to remember generic packaging?" And with one exception, they were.

The person who remembered and I spent a few minutes enlightening the younger folks about "generics."

I remember that I was working at Berkley Publishing at the time and that at the height of the generic craze we published three or four "generic novels," including, iirc, a Science Fiction Novel and (maybe) a romance. But it was 20+ years ago and memory dims.

Does anyone else out there remember generics in general and the generic novels in particular, and does anyone have any idea where I might find a visual on the web of the generic novels to use to further enlighten younger Tor staffers? Preliminary searches of amazon, ebay, alibris, etc. have been unhelpful.

I know, I know, this is a weird question, but this is an open thread and the people here are some of the smartest folks with the most wide-ranging interests I know.

This Wikipedia was interesting. No images of generic books, though.

It was interesting enough to keep me reading to the end, but when I got done I didn't see the point. Our protagonist falls into the possession of a time machine and uses it to explore all sorts of paradoxes, alternate histories and sexual escapades with alternate versions of himself. Ultimately, he is an extremely bored dilettante who keeps hoping to find something interesting in some timeline somewhere. I wound up feeling like "well, that was amusing, but couldn't this guy find something worthwhile to do with all this power?" I don't know, maybe that was the point.

Also, I know a guy following more directly in the generic lineage who constructs blank boxes designed to be the same shape as real products and leaves them on the shelves at local stores. Like a little refresher for folks who've been blinded by row upon row of ad-text.

We also got our first family home computer in 1985. It was a Commodore 64. IMHO one of the better mid-80's home computers to emerge before the generic PC proliferation forced just about everything besides Apple off the market. Its color and sound beat the daylights out of the just about everything else released that same year; even the Macs of the time.

I loved that computer. Used it until 1992 when I got an actual PC as a graduation gift. I think my parents still have our C64 in the attic? I wonder if it works. I'd love to get it and set it up again. I have not played "Legacy of the Ancients" or "Stuart Smith's Adventure Construction Set" in decades!

You'd look at the cereals, and see the pure white box with the words CORN FLAKES shouting amidst the sea of colorful boxes and capering kiddie characters.

No gimmicks. No bullshit.

And they tasted just like cornflakes should taste.

As did the GRANULATED SUGAR you'd sprinkle on it in the morning, and which was sold on the opposite side of the isle from the CORN FLAKES.

John Silbersack, now an agent, wrote SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL. David Hartwell reminds me that Terry Bisson wrote WESTERN NOVEL. Neither of us can remember who wrote the other two books.

Gursky @75: I like the guerilla art guy. My 11-yo dd and I just read The Plain Janes, a graphic novel which is very much about guerilla art.

That was the year I started my library, in that I began to act on the thought that I'd be keeping books long-term.

Not that I didn't have a library before, but I hadn't yet connected "books" with "deep time." Buying not just for the me of today, but the me of 22 years (or 44, or 66) from now*.

Then, my used book-buying budget was about $10/month. Most of that went to a local flea-market, where books tended to be about 4-5/$1 for paperbacks, $.5-$1 for a hardcover.

I could easily find my 40 books for the month if I didn't worry too much about the spine's condition. But sometime in 1985 I started to look much harder. I wanted the books to be in reasonably good condition. Books that'd last.

Books I still have**.

-----
* 22 years? 2007? That's the 21st century! So far away.

** Mostly. I did finally work out a rule for getting rid of bad books, because otherwise I'd be a Smaug with gold in my library.

Melissa @69 I remember the generics, though not the novels. The food product labels used to say things like "suitable for everyday use," which has survived in our household as "suitable for everyday abuse."

You have instantly earwormed me with music from the Rankin-Bass Return of the King.

"Abi of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom! Why does she have only Nine Fingers? Where is the Ring of Doom???"

You have instantly earwormed me with music from the Rankin-Bass Return of the King.

"Abi of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom! Why does she have only Nine Fingers? Where is the Ring of Doom???"

I bought, from Pathmark circa 1985:

Generic frozen ravioli. Careful examination of the label showed that they were imported and that the cheese was made of sheep's milk.

Generic spaghetti sauce. It was like the slippery, translucent, orange stuff that comes with Raviolios or Chef Boyardee canned pasta. Awful.

* * *

I think there's a big difference, marketing wise, between knock offs and generics and house brands.

Some house brands are really good. They sell on quality and trust.

Knock-offs in look-alike packaging sell via a sort of reputation voodoo. If it looks like X, it must have the same qualities as X.

The closest thing to generics these days are specialized low-rent house brands. For example, the local Kroger chain, Fred Meyer, sells Fred Meyer stuff, Kroger brand stuff, and also FMV. ("For Maximum Value.") FMV stuff is always cheaper; sometimes suspiciously cheap.

One of these days I'll buy a bag of Fred Meyer frozen peas and FMV frozen peas and do a comparison.

I remember having read The Man Who Folded Himself, but next to nothing about it. Only comment I can make is that I do occasionally think I ought to look for it and read it again, so the experience must not have been entirely negative.

Someone had to kick it off. And it has mutated inside my head. Now I pass it back on to the world. Soon my revenge will be complete!!!!!1ONE!

Web Surfing
__________________________________________

Web surfing, across the Internet
Computer networks, servers: look at all those tubes!
Web surfing, across the internet
Boldly clicking forward, because we are not n00bs

Communications report!

There's earworms running through my brain.
Through my brain, through my brain.
There's earworms running through my brain.
Through my brain, Argh!

Analysis, nerds and pedants!

Well, they're memes, sir, but not as we know them
Not as we know them, not as we know them.
They're memes, sir, but not as we know them,
Not as we know them, LOL!

There's earworms running through my brain.
Through my brain, through my brain.
There's earworms running through my brain.
Through my brain, Argh!

Web surfing, across the Internet
Computer browser, websites: look at all those tubes!
Web surfing, across the internet
Boldly clicking forward. Dammit, we're not n00bs!

Data filtering report!

It's worse than that, it's spam, sir
Spam, sir. Spam, sir
It's worse than that, it's spam, sir
Spam, sir, Spam!

Well, they're memes, sir, but not as we know them
Not as we know them, not as we know them.
They're memes, sir, but not as we know them,
Not as we know them, ROFL!

There's earworms running through my brain.
Through my brain, through my brain.
There's earworms running through my brain.
Through my brain, Argh!

Weblog administration report!

Ah ha! Stay on topic! (disemvowel)
(Disemvowel, disemvowel)
Stay on topic! (disemvowel)
(Disemvowel trolls)

It's worse than that, it's spam, sir
Spam, sir. Spam, sir
It's worse than that, it's spam, sir
Spam, sir, Spam!

Well, they're memes, sir, but not as we know them
Not as we know them, not as we know them.
They're memes, sir, but not as we know them,
Not as we know them, ROFLMAO!

There's earworms running through my brain.
Through my brain, through my brain.
There's earworms running through my brain.
Make it stop, please!

Web surfing, across the Internet
Computer networks, servers: look at all those tubes!
Web surfing, across the internet
Boldly clicking forward — hey, look: b00bs!

Systems analysis report!

Ye canna change the laws of logic
Laws of logic, laws of logic
Ye canna change the laws of logic
Laws of logic, sir

Ah ha! Stay on topic! (disemvowel)
(Disemvowel, disemvowel)
Stay on topic! (disemvowel)
Crap, the server crashed.

It's worse than that, it's spam, sir
Spam, sir. Spam, sir
It's worse than that, it's spam, sir
Spam, sir, Spam!

Well, they're memes, sir, but not as we know them
Not as we know them, not as we know them.
They're memes, sir, but not as we know them,
Not as we know them. WTF?

There's earworms running through my brain.
Through my brain, through my brain.
There's earworms running through my brain.
Through my brain, Argh!

ALL UR BASE BELONG TO CATS!
MY BUCKET, HAVE YOU SEEN IT?
I CAN HAS PR0N?
OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!!!!
Server meltdown. Network meltdown.
Computer meltdown. Brain meltdown.

Tubes all blocked.
The rest is silence.

A little Google research, and I turned up the term "No Frills Books" and "No Frills Science Fiction". After that, I was able to find this picture of the "No Frills Science Fiction" book:

"No Frills Science Fiction"

And speaking of generics (always popular in my household) I had a grey tabby named Generic; I had acquired her as an Easter gift in '83, and it took a month for a name to "stick". Generic was my dad's suggestion, based on her complete nondescript gray tabby-ness. She gained a "sibling", Spot, shortly after we adopted her. Generic only lasted one year in Il, before being hit by a car, but Spot was nearly 20 before he wore out.

Ken houghton (#24): I have both Bobby Pickett's "Star Drek" and The Firm[1]'s "Star Trekkin'"; the latter is the one being repeatedly quoted here.

[1] Not to be confused with either of the two "supergroup"s that used the name.

Owlmirror (#92): Bravo.

On knives: I have the Victorinox "Cybertool 34", because it has (among other features) Torx bits. I have found that it is a sufficiently versatile tool that I can disassemble a large rack-mounted server with no other tools necessary. I wouldn't recommend it as a boating knife, unless you're planning to sail around a data center.

A notable musical reference to 1985 is in the SR-71 song of the same title, most famously covered by Bowling For Soup (complete with a video referencing a number of 80s music video clichés).

(Please note I'm 5 hours east of the server time...)

PRV 79 As did the GRANULATED SUGAR you'd sprinkle on it in the morning, and which was sold on the opposite side of the isle from the CORN FLAKES.

Well, that's not so bad in Manhattan, but it's still kind of a long walk. Blocks and blocks, unless you're wayyy downtown.

I can't find any images of the generic books either. But there are what seem to be copies of the sf one ("Science Fiction I") selling on abebooks.com for $1.

Not used as in digested and shat, but because it has a grotty thrift store vibe to it.

As PVR suggests, the place has entertainment value, as well as occasional wonderful bargains.

Last year I saw a shelf full of Pathmark house brand pop-tarts. I'm in Oregon; as far as I know Pathmark doesn't have stores west of New Jersey.

Once Grocery Outlet got a shipment of 5 lb. bags of things like collard greens and brussel sprouts. Very cheap, very good. I had hopes they'd show up again. Not to be. Wah!

Insightful comment about the number 85. Witty reply to earlier comment.

See? I'm topical.

I believe that by 1985 I no longer had to eat generic products. But in about '80 or so, I remember that they saved me from starvation, at a time when I had $60 to my name, and had to make that last for six months (food only; I had a different arrangement for my rent). That wasn't as ludicrous as it would be today, but still pretty extreme. Generic mac&cheese was 19¢ a box. You were supposed to make it with margarine and milk, neither of which I could afford; I'd cook it at noon and have half for lunch and half for supper. Breakfast was not a meal.

I did a certain amount of scrounging to supplement during that time. Also my sister gave me a huge bag of assorted potatos left over from the ag lab she worked on. That helped a lot. Also I never knew there were so many kinds! And I may have been one of the first people to eat what is now called a Yukon Gold potato; they were developed at Michigan State around then.

I won't eat box-mix mac&cheese now. I WILL eat the zingy pasta-cheddar casserole I invented, with the mushrooms and onions and sundried tomatos and the herbs and spices—but I never, ever make it with elbow macaroni.

1985. As someone else mentioned, that was the year Back to the Future opened. I hadn't seen Michael J. Fox before; I fell in instant lust.

On the down side, it was also the first year of the second Reagan administration, as watching that movie reminds us.

I used to love Grocery Outlet for the cereal boxes printed in Urdu and Hindi and Mandarin. Especially Count Chocula.

Melissa @ #69, I certainly do remember generic groceries, but did not realize there had been generic novels.

The used food store! LOL! That fits entirely.

Although Grocery Outlet, as a chain, seems to be doing far better these days than it did ten years ago. Ten years ago, when we went to the outlet in Mt. Vernon, WA, it really was grotty. Dirty floor, bad lighting, hulking and unclean register workers.... Not attractive.

The location in Tacoma where we now shop is almost like a regular Safeway or Albertsons or something similar. Lighting is better, aisles (hah, Xopher) are clean and well organized, they even have produce now, and much of the discounted stuff is 'normal' brand; though you still see the off-name stuff, like the pop tarts you mentioned.

I'm always amused to find store brand Piggly Wiggly canned items at Grocery Outlet. Talk about seeing things not normally found in the West!

Any other Grocery Outlet shoppers here?

Do you remember there being a war in your story? Your description reminds me of one recent story, but I hesitate to name it here because your description + the title could be a spoiler.

Across the street from me is a WinCo, a huge no-frills supermarket. The bulk section is remarkable; everything from candy and dog biscuits to whole grain pasta and three-colored couscous.

Last month, when various news outlets were covering the "[Congressperson|mayor|governor] shops on a Food Stamp budget," I took some scratch paper to WinCo and figured out what I'd buy for $84 a month. It seems doable, and I'd probably eat better than a good chunk of Earth's population, but it would be a boring and rather starchy diet that requires lots of prep time and cooking. Lots of cabbage, potatoes, pasta, oatmeal, and so on. (Of course, not everyone lives next to WinCo. If you shopped at a ripoff urban grocer you'd be in deep trouble.)

I don't remember a war, but I do remember gung gur cebgntbavfg ng bar cbvag fcrag n ybg bs gvzr va na nanybthr 19gu Praghel Ybaqba nffvfgvat n Ubyzrf-nanybthr va qrgrpgvba. That help?

However, I will never again go to the one in the ID on the day the Mariners are playing at home. It's pretty visited by every Japanese tourist in the Northwest at such times, and I don't like crowds much any more.

Ah. Different story, and not ringing any bells.

Serge of the Seven Seas?

Could this be Here, There and Everywhere by Chris Roberson? I haven't read it, but it sounds like the synopsis.

No, but my doorbell does.

It's the sound that a double glazing salesman hears when he presses the button beside the door during the dinner hour, shortly before he is flensed in one neat, swift tongue-lashing and sent upon his way, still skinless.

I do it to phone spammers as well.

Personally, I'd have to say "War and Peace" is about the best novelization of Napoleonic-era life in Russia that I've ever read.

Andrew @ 55:

First, get one with a lanyard hook.

Second, I'd have to say that in my opinion (which counts for little if anything at all) the best knife is always the one that someone gives you...I had a Swiss Army Knife for about two decades based on it's status as "coolest gift I was given on my 11th birthday" and NOT on it's merits of practical usefulness.

After it broke from over sharpening and one-too-many tumbles down a rock wall after falling out of my pocket (no lanyard ring) I tried several alternatives.

For my personal taste, a leatherman tool with the needle-nose pliers in the fold up is the perfect multi-use tool. They make several that are durable, fit nicely in the hand, and have as few or as many "extras" as you need (but seriously, NO ONE needs an awl on their pocket knife).

For boating I'd get one with a nice serrated blade and a corrosion resistant finish. And a lanyard hook.

Trust me on the lanyard hook.

---

I used to have ellipsis-itis...but now I seem to have developed hyper-hyphenation-disease...is there a reliable and effective cure someone could recommend?

You may enjoy the story I just told in the White Horse thread on why my acquaintance will never again get door-to-door religion salesmen.

#75: Muji opened shops in London a couple of years ago. Not bad.

#95: there was a band called SR-71? I'll file that along with the B-52s and U2. And, I suppose, the Eagles. And the Foo Fighters.

Any others? Was there a rock and roll band called the Phantoms? It sounds as though there ought to have been. Glamorous Glennis and The X-1-ettes? (better than Enola Gay and the Liberators)
Has Charlie Stross set up a cover band called the B-36s yet?

THIS is why I HOPE to someday get a door to door religion peddler. It won't be unique, but it will be fun.

The follow up is also a good time waiting to happen.

Yes, that's it. Thanks a lot, the itching has stopped.

Looking at the website: was the book published under two separate titles or are there two related books with the same protagonist? Inquiring minds want to know.

best swiss army knife of all

Caller: ... and there's a death benefit as well.
Me: You mean you'd benefit from my death?
Caller: Oh, no, no, no.
Me: But you just said so. Why do you want my death?
Caller: I don't want you to die.
Me: Then why did you talk about benefitting from my death? This is just too weird. Goodbye.

ISTR Godwin's Law appearing for the first time on Usenet, on misc.legal, something like 1987 or 1988. Mike was one of the more prolific posters there when I was following it.

So she let the Jehovah's Witnesses* in and sat them down to talk. After a bit one of them noticed the family photograph. At the time I was thinner and had dark hair and beard. I was compared physically by several people to Charles Manson.

The JW was a little shaken by the picture, and then noticed a Frazetta print I'd hung on the wall**. He asked Eva what that signified, and she told him that was one of our holy pictures. They left hurriedly muttering something about "Satan".

* I resisted the temptation to use 'l' instead of an 'n'. Ain't I good?

** I think it was Sun Goddess but it was almost 30 years ago, and I'm overdue for ... something, don't remember what.

http://www.librarything.com/work-info.php?book=8064884

And: a thread about pocket knife recommendations! (Man, I love this place...)

Since I went off to college a long time ago, I've carried a Swiss Army "Classic" on my key-ring. I've experimented with various larger models, right up to the Victorinox "Preposterous" model - but they wear right through your pockets.

So I've settled on an everyday knife on my key ring (currently, the version of the "Classic" that has a built-in LED), and I also keep a Special Occasion tool/knife somewhere in the vicinity, where it doesn't wear out my clothes: I keep a Leatherman tool in every glovebox, a specialized Victorinox in the laptop case, etc.

I've mentioned who called us in other threads: it's a website where you can look up caller-ID numbers and enter in numbers of phone spammers calling. I encourage everyone to use it: the more info entered, the faster spammers and scammers' patterns are visible.

Recently I got back from a weekend trip to see 5-6 "missed calls" from one number.

I looked it up: it was a 'benevolent fund for firefighters and kittens' type charity. Not a full scam, but the majority of donations goes to overhead- ick. Other people reported how very, very difficult it was to get them to stop calling: as soon as you mentioned the dnc list they'd hang up. And then call again and again.

Ah. I was prepared. Since they'd hang up on people mentioning the dnc list, they were fair game. Note that I never... lied.

Ring. Ring. [Notes caller-id is from the spammers]
"Hello, who is calling?"
"This is the BFFFAK, is this Kathryn Fudsudlyjail? Do you know about the good works of firefighters in the face of dangerous fires...?"

"Are you calling about my dad?"
"What?"

"Because he's dead. Firefighters couldn't save my dad*."
"Wha...oh, I'm so sorry, and..."

"Don't you think it's a little too soon**? Why would I want to hear about fires now?"
"Err... well, firefighters..."

"Do firefighters think about giving to my family?***"
"I'msosorrytohearaboutyourloss. I'm going to put you on our do-not-call list, so no one from here ever calls again. AgainI'msosorry. Goodbye."

---------
* Not that we asked them to: he was in the hospital. No one could, including firefighters.

** certainly it was too soon from the last 6 times they'd tried calling me.

*** No. (Although they, on balance, might owe my dad some thanks. He did some nifty work as a forensics engineer on fire prevention.)

An official "Do Not Call" list for Australia has just started, and I'm dead certain that the exemptions for charities & other 'good causes' will just become a loophole wide enough for the botheration to be hardly affected.

Stefan (#88) Now, of course, sheep's milk cheese is fancy, expensive, gourmet stuff, pecorino, & so forth.

But it doesn't mean they don't have Do-Not-Call lists. It's just trickier to get on them.

Those charities and their overhead, boy-oh-boy. Let's talk about charities and direct mail and the efficiency they obviously don't feel they need to have in direct mail expenditures.

So an elderly relative of mine passed away 2 years ago, and I'm helping, as is all my family, (probate recently closed) to clean up and fix up the house.

She did donate to the Humane Society, we know that. But she was and continues to be on the lists of another 30 "Save the X sympathetic megafauna" charities*.

They send photos, and cards, and nickels, and quarters, and calendars. At Christmas they send Xmas cards, even thin ornaments.

They run inefficiently, and that annoys me, because they haven't noticed and don't care that she hasn't responded ever, especially ever in the past 2 years.

And, gah, catalogs. She did shop from 2-3 catalogs, not being able to walk well her last few years. So she'd get about 10 catalogs. I've been watching them. The catalogs will say they miss you, and that if you don't order soon (this when she never ordered ever) they'll stop sending the catalog. No, they'll just send 10 "we miss you" covers in a row, and never ever stop.

----
* I should take her name off. It only costs $1. Although that's $1 by credit card to the Direct Marketing Association. Not thrilled, that.

I don't think they have quite the same cultural traction as a B-52, U2, or SR-71, though. Plus, helicopters aren't the fastest, biggest, highest flying, or anything like that. They're airborne jeeps.

Not to mention, the actual model numbers, UH-1, AH-1, and AH-64, have almost zero cultural traction.

Is there a band called "Weapons of Mass Destuction"? That's got some traction, but it's negative. There is a band called "Anthrax" named after the bioweapon, but the band existed long before the anthrax scares.

Hm. "foo fighters" is an obscure ww2 term. My guess is if you want military terms for bands, look for more WW2 terms. That was the last "good" war, after all.

Not everyone is prepared to deal with an Episcopalian* who did the first two years of her A.B., Religion at a Baptist college.

-----
*Well, I was one at the time. It got better.

Andrew T: I second (tenth? twentieth?) Victorinox. I have the 3-bay enlisted model: Phillips screwdriver in place of a corkscrew (because enlisted men drink beer instead of wine*), awl, 2 blades, scissors, can & bottle openers, tweezers, and a plastic toothpick in a very compact package. I've used all of them. V are usually stainless steel, which is a good thing if you're around water but not great for cutting -- the blades don't seem to hold a good edge even when sharpened by a serious knife store. This may be a serious problem on a sailboat, less so on a motorboat.

* No, really, that's what the salesman said. And I pay heed to anyone who recognizes a stylized Cheshire cat from the other end of the store.

I have the Sony reader. The reader itself is fine and is stuffed with Neil Stephenson novels at the moment (I just finished the Baroque Cycle). The software is Windows-only, and the attached online bookstore has a disappointing selecton. There have been no problems putting "outside" books on there: I've loaded the whole Honor Harrington series off the CD that was included with the last book. The DRM is only slightly obtrusive - a one-time setup. I have not had to transfer my books between PCs yet so can't report on that.

If you're buying one, go to Borders and play with the demo unit there to see if you like the look and feel and if the screen is ok. The way the screen works, there is sometimes ghosting from previous screens. It also will store pictures (display is black and white only), and MP3s, which I haven't tried yet.

My biggest complaint is that if I leave it powered up, random bumps will flip pages. So I always bookmark my latest page, and usually power it off if I'm not actively reading.

I would love to have the Harry Potter novels or the Aubrey/Maturin series in an electronic format: anyone know where I might find them (if anywhere?)

Years ago, we had a sort of Pagan slan-shack going on the top floor of an apartment building. Unfortunately, the second floor was partly occupied by JWs who liked to knock on our doors first thing Sunday morning when we were recovering from the p/a/r/t/y ritual of the night before.

One day, a rather large member of our group got fed up with this. Saturday night, all 6 foot 2 of his wrestler physique took the biggest book we had and knocked on their door. He said,
"Hello, I'm from Odin's Witnesses and I'm here to talk to you about the Elder Eddas".

They never bothered us again.

Re generics:
At one point, they were so widespread here in Minnesota that a friend had a generic *party*. The invitations were plain black and white with a bar code, all the food and drink, including the beer, were generic. AND he made t-shirts for all attendess that said "Generic Guest" on them, with a bar-code; the host and his girlfriend's t-shirts had "Generic Host" on them.

Still have the t-shirt.

I once started a trend at a party by taking a plain white label, drawing a black stripe 1/2" from the top, neatly (for me) writing "NO FRILLS" above the line, "LARRY" below it and adding starbursts reading "CFC-Free" and "Dolphin Safe". Soon everyone was wearing inappropriate product attributes.

Oddly, now some of the store brand products are better than the national brands.

The $1 charge online is to prevent people from doing bulk unlist operations -- i.e., use a bot to submit an entire phonebook.

The sad part is the reason the charities resort to the geegaws and telemarketing is that it works. Most people don't just send checks out of the blue. From the charity's point of view, getting 10% of money contributed is better than 100% of zero.

If we're giving them prayers, what could be more appropriate than The Possibly Proper Death Litany otherwise known as The Agnostics Prayer ("To whom it may concern ...")

> ** Mostly. I did finally work out a rule for getting rid of bad books, because otherwise I'd be a Smaug with gold in my library.

What's your rule? I've been trying to purge lately and the best I've been able to do is "purge books while feeling sour and irritable".

They were student priests of the Carmelite order (discalced) studying at the Berkeley theological college. They were a little...unworldly. They were also, by house rules, in the custom of wearing their habits (brown, long tunic plus scapular plus capuce) around the house.

The house was an ordinary residential house on an ordinary street.

The brother in charge of opening the door on the fateful day was Thomas, who happened to be going bald at the time. His particular baldness pattern exactly duplicated the medieval tonsure, and he has a lean, aescetic face anyway.

So the JWs ring the doorbell, and this monk straight out of a medieval illumination opens the door. They begin the spiel - a little hesitantly - and he looks interested. He invites them in, offers them something to drink and some nibbles (they always had things around, because they always had people around). The other brothers gather to listen to these people, like it's another lecture at theological college.

Then they get out their triglot (Hebrew/Greek/English) Bibles and start looking up the relevant passages. Without really meaning to, they fall back into some long-running arguments about the translation of a couple of words, and some of the exegesis that falls out of that.

I think it went on for an hour before the priest in charge of the house came back from the shopping and rescued the poor JW's. I understand they haven't been back.

Ironically, my mother's father's father was a nineteenth century Cree, we think. I don't think his name was Nine-Fingers.

Greg, #68, I'm the one who asked for the new thread to start with, and there's 163 posts when I get here!

Linkmeister, #77, I remember the generic cans at the commissary in the 1960s and on. They usually weren't even black and white, but black lettering on the can.

Fragano, #128, Ow!

Karl, #131, I use the awl on my Victorinix Swiss Army Knife. I use my regular awl at home much more often, but I keep the VSAK in the car for when I'm out.

More of the story here.

I read ebooks on: My desktop PC running Windows XP (19" CRT monitor), My Sony PSP (4.5" Backlit TFT) and My HTC s710 Smartphone running Windows Mobile 6 (2.5" Backlit TFT).

The Desktop PC can read everything I've thrown at it no matter what the DRM because all the umpty-billion ebook DRM formats have a reader that runs on Windows XP, but it's ummm, not exactly portable, and a 19" CRT isn't the greatest thing for reading books on. It's actually too big, and the brightness and contrast level I want for reading ebooks, is different from the one I want for doing other stuff.

...

The Sony PSP can't do DRM of any kind, but has a web browser so can read books in HTML and plain text format. Unlike a desktop PC it's actually portable, and the TFT screen is really quite reasonable for reading. However, it's fairly heavy, and the inbuilt web browser is not ideal for ebook reading as the controls are a bit clunky when reading a book. It also tends to get really slow on some HTML ebook layouts. Generally when they stick all the text for the entire book in one file and have a big picture of the front cover at the top of the page, it tends to have performance problems.

(Tip for reading Baan HTML formatted books on a PSP, link to the contents page of each book from your homemade booklist index page, rather than the usual Baan start-of-book page, as this will strip out all the navigation cruft that just gets in the way on the PSP.)

...

The phone can handle most DRM types because it's running Windows Mobile. As long as it isn't DRM'd PDFs -- too heavyweight, out of date software from Adobe -- I can probably find something that does the job to put on the phone. It is portable and light, and the screen is actually really nice, but obviously it's just too small.

It's not actually as bad as 2.5" sounds because most ebook reading software will let you jack up font size to something reasonble and set scrolling options and things. However 40 words per 'page' is not exactly ideal. I haven't even tried HTML or plain-text on it, I just can't see there being enough flexibiity in a web-browser or text-editor application to get a comfortable setup for reading on a screen that small.

...

So if you want a more-portable-than-a-laptop device primarily for reading ebooks on, I guess I would say you want a PDA of some kind running Windows Mobile/Pocket PC, with a TFT screen of a similar size to the PSP or bigger, should such a thing exist. This would give the most DRM compatibility in a smallish device, at a reasonable screen size for reading.

If you don't need *quite* as much DRM compatbility then a PDA with Palm-OS rather than Windows is probably just as good if not better.

You'll also want a flash memory card of an appropriate type to stick your books on.

If you don't mind being locked into a single DRM format then you have more choices, including the various types dedicated ebook reader hardware, for your first device, and then probably subsequently horribly limited ones for future devices due to the DRM lock-in.

If you don't need or want to read DRM'd material at all, you are in the happy position of being able to choose practically anything that's in the right form factor with a screen you like that can read html or plain-text, including Linux-y things like the Nokia N800 (as recomended by Mr. Stross I believe).

My Friends Rush In rule:

Friends rush in. "Hey, late for the airport, gone in 30 seconds... Flying to Australia- 16 hours- plus layover- fully awake- need to borrow books. k...thx..bye." And they're gone.

While talking, they've taken several books off your shelves. Assuming that they're aware of what type of books they have*, do you feel compelled to grab any of those books away, because you like your friends too much to let them be trapped on an airplane with that book?

You've already read it, and you strongly feel it isn't worth your friends' time. If you won't let your friends read it, why would you not be a friend to yourself and stop yourself from rereading it?

Why do you still have it?

This is a rule / question I could apply while in in any mood, and I did. Note that I generally wrote the names down so that I could revisit them** if needed- funny, I've never missed them.

For example, me in a happy mood and contemplating my library:
"Would it make me less happy to think of my friends reading this book?" leads to
"Am I as happy knowing the book isn't on the shelf and is in this box?" leads to
"Am I happy the box of mediocre books is gone?" leads to
"I now have a shelf with room for new books. Yay!"

-----
* i.e. they know they're in the Economic Theory section, or you call out "zoology" or "Kierkegaardian existentialism" when they were about to choose a book. Also assume your small library of guilty pleasures is in another room, and that your friends can recognize your antique or collectible books.

** now I can and do take a digital photograph of what I sell or give away. When I go back to look at those pics, I've felt nothing but happiness that me-of-the-past gifted me-of-today with getting rid of that ugly stuff. And it isn't that I don't understand the "but I could use it someday" feeling.

Baan HTML formatted books

And if you think those are something you should try reading SAP or Peoplesoft HTML formatted books on your PSP! Alas, the J.D. Edwards ones suck.

...Yes, I did actually mean Baen there :)

As for Jehovah's Witnesses, I was doorstepped by a Mother and Daughter pair one day while working at home. The mother started talking about Eve crushing the serpent, so I got out Robert Graves's Greek Myths and explained about the cult of Ashtoreth, and she hustled her daughter out of the door rapidly...

You know, probably 2 or 3 times a week I get insomnia. Frequently I get up and web surf, searching for that one special link that will bring meaning and joy to the internet.

Up until now, it hasn't worked.

(Those following Marilee's link should also check out Subservient Chicken at the bottom of the referenced page.)

Gursky, #66: It kept me tolerably well-entertained while sitting in the jury duty pool for several hours. I remember that I was mind-bent enough to shake my head after finishing it, that I thought it was worthwhile to have read it, and that I've not felt any need to read it again.

On knives: I have a pocketknife I keep on my belt. It's this one. I didn't buy it, nor was it given me -- I sat down on a BART train one day, and there it was. It must have caught on the edge of the seat cushion and fallen off its owner's belt without him noticing. Really I ought to have turned it in to Lost and Found but I couldn't bring myself to.

Thanks for the info!

I shouldn't read books on the computer because I spend 8-10 hours a day in front of a computer, and my spine isn't wild about that. I shouldn't read them on anything smaller than a paperback because the 8-10 hours of computing is hard on the eyes as well as the spine. So it sounds like I could get the Sony reader and buy DRM-free content for it if I want to...that's good news. I'll go fiddle with it at the store and see what I think.

So, where do you buy your e-books?

But no Skrull in the family tree, right?

I didn't see Back to the Future until 1997, but fell madly in love with it when I did. I suppose Xopher has dibs on Marty, though, having seen him first. (Rats!)

All this talk about Generics is fascinating! I much regret having never experienced them (although I am familiar with numerous "no-name" and "house" brands).

"SILBERSACK, JOHN (WALTER) (1954- ) US editor and writer, active in the former capacity with Putnam/Berkley books 1977-81 [... snip further career details ...] His own writing has been, by comparison, peripheral, consisting of an anonymous sf spoof, No Frills Science Fiction (1981 chap) ..."

(1984, by comparison, was almost certainly the best year of my life. A large part of me still lives there.)

1985 will always be Marty McFly and Doc Brown, and dreams of going back and making things better.

Stefan @116: Part of the point of the "congressperson on food stamps" experiment (my congressperson was one of them) was to demonstrate what people could afford _in their neighborhoods_. Not only do many urban neighborhoods not have _any_ supermarkets, they also don't have greengrocers. And to get to a supermarket, you have to either drive or take public transportation. Not everyone has a car, obviously enough, and trying to carry a week's worth of groceries on the bus or subway, well, it's a serious trial--and people can't afford to make an extra trip more than once a week. It's $2 each way in NYC right now if you're not bulk-buying your transit. I assume most of the people on food stamps are not able to bulk-buy transportation.

The other part of the food stamp experiment that was really interesting were the physical and emotional/psychological effects of eating that sort of diet. My congressperson reported feeling tired and cranky all the time, having substantially less energy, being unable to stick to his usual exercise/activity routine, not being able to think clearly, etc. This made me wonder how much diet was responsible for poor educational outcomes in families on food stamps/in poverty.

It's not just inner cities that have problems gaining access to food, either. At the other end of my neighborhood, a small supermarket closed a few years ago, replaced by a "nearby" and much larger branch of the same chain. The problem? The small market was that only supermarket near a number of senior living facilities. Most of these older people don't drive anymore for various reasons, though they are living mostly independently. The new, large market is too far for the seniors to walk to. Happily, the living facilities ultimately set up a shuttle service so that the old folks could do their shopping, but it's not free.

The Palm Z22 is $100 and though the screen is small, I found it surprisingly easy to read lots of stuff on it. The Palm TX has a much nicer screen but is more expensive, in the $250-$300 range.

My understanding is that the Sony reader is a lot bigger, which would seriously cut down on its portability for me.

And at this time in 1985, I was coming up on eight years old and just finishing second grade. I can't be the youngest person reading this?

When my daughter was a lot younger, she and I wound up becoming fairly friendly with a young JW and her daughter, who was the same age as my child. For about a year she sporadically attempted to convert me. I think she was never really taught how to try to convert a Jew, though, because she was really bad at it. I was actually very curious about her faith, and asked a whole lot of questions. But alas, this never turned into a desire on my part to become a JW. Also, I was newly involved with what has since become "my" synagogue, so after a while it must have become clear to her that I was just not interested. I was never less than respectful of her faith, though, and we talked a lot, as time passed, about faith and practice, about educating our children, etc.

Eventually, we were invited to her daughter's end-of-school-year (because they don't have birthday parties) party. We were the only non-JWs there. I think that no one outside of my friend's husband knew that we were Jewish until we were well into the festivities; then there were all sorts of awkward Jewish cliches trotted out (talking about education, someone said, "your people really value education, don't they?"; talking about how JW's tend to marry within the faith and how my friend was unusual because her husband was a convert rather than born into the faith, someone said, "well, Jews tend to marry their own, too, right?"). Ignorance rather than bigotry, you know?

Anyway, it was fascinating.

It was also the last time we saw them socially. I have a feeling that the elders who were at the party came down on my friend pretty hard for associating with a non-JW. And I suspect they figured out that I was the source of some questions she'd asked during the preceding year or so (oops, that was bad of me, but it wasn't on purpose). We saw them from time to time in the neighborhood, of course, but it wasn't like before. About 2 years later she stopped by my table in a local eatery to say that the family was relocating to a predominantly JW town somewhere in the South. And that she and her husband were in counseling.

I wonder about her from time to time.

Muji: had it in Leeds in '98 or thereabouts.

Blades: I used to carry a Victorinox everywhere, and I also had a Swisscard - a tool they make that fits into a credit card-sized wallet pouch. However, I used the Victorinox to activate a sealed USB port on a college computer, and (floating on a wave of geekifaction) left it there. The card remained in my wallet until I forgot it was there and Heathrow security nailed the fucker..

I like your method, Katherine. I've found it very freeing to be able to let go of books I no longer want, of clothes I won't wear, of the things that clutter up my life and accumulate. It's easier for me to let go when the objects I'm letting go of are going to good homes, and people who want or need them.

Can someone head out to California and explain to Mr Wheaton and Takei why involving themselves with these people is a bad bad bad idea?

My entry yard is a series of steps filled with loose pea gravel, with floating pavers of various shapes. The utilitarian rectangular concrete ones are set to accomodate the pace of people between 4'6" and 6'2" (this feature also acts as a drain feature to keep the roof water from running down the driveway). One wintery afternoon the dogs started their "visitors" bark, and I got to the door in time to see a young woman carrying a fist full of "Watchtowers" and a Bible, wearing an unseasonable but flattering dress and pumps with three inch heels, carefully picking her way between the pavers, avoiding the grey concrete and multicolored Escheresque fish and roughly split basalt with equal care to sink her narrow heels half their length in loose gravel.

I'm sure any number of instructive analogies could be derived from that scene.

I've been seriously thinking about a Palm now that my Newton** is on its last legs. I've been holding out for a smartphone, because the idea of having 3 gadgets on my belt** was just too much. But now that I've got an iPod shuffle that clips to my shirt, and a cable that hooks it up directly to my hearing aids, I'm not so concerned about that.

So is the Palm screen, either Z22 or TX, really comfortable for reading over long time periods (say a 4 or 5 hour plane flight)?

* Yes, an Apple Newton 2100. If you think a Sony E-Reader is too big, then you don't even want to think about this monster. But the screen is large and has good resolution even by today's standards, and I've read books on it quite comfortably. Still, because the software is pretty much unmaintainable anymore, I use less and less of its capabilities. These days it's primarily an encrypted password store.

** PDA, phone, music player.

corrected link

I think I'll avoid that drug, thankyouverymuch

I haven't looked at the in-between model, the E2; when I upgraded I wanted Wi-Fi.

My area Staples has handhelds out on display to play with, which might be worth looking at to get an idea of what you think. And the TX does play music, though not stuff bought from iTunes.

There are also Windows Mobile PDAs, of course, which I haven't used. When I started on PDAs I wanted something small & relatively inexpensive to see if I'd really use it, which meant the Z22, and then when I upgraded I was used to the OS and had all my data in Palm format.

It's the perfect diaper for the baby who never poops. Everyone else, umm, not so much.

I'm getting a 404 Page not found error on that link. Has the Vulcan - Canadian cyberwar finally begun, do you think?

Oops, cross-posted with your fixed link. Thanks.

Thanks, I'll take a look at them.

I'm not particularly interested in a Windows Mobile device; I've been very unhappy with most attempts to use Windows in memory-constrained or real-time environments. It was a while back, but I've taken the incident of the Navy Smart Ship to heart.

Pretty much the only other girl in evidence was the one DC had paid to dress up as Wonder Woman. My friend and I would get in a line to get an autograph, and the artist or author would instantly wave us to the front of the line - "hey! girls! come up here!" Steve Rude came up and introduced himself to me in the dealer room but I blew him off because I was shy of strangers and hadn't heard of him...d'oh!

Every artist or writer had a little circle of fanboys huddled around them, drinking in whatever they had to say. The guys in a circle around Frank Miller were all comic book pro's.

It was one of the best days of my life, and one of the very few where being female made everything that much more wonderful.

The modern paranoia on weapons has rather stopped me doing so regularly.

1985 was just about the end of relatively relaxed attitudes to toy guns. I recall several people at Albacons in Glasgow in well-armed hall costumes. Then there was the Hungerford massacre, and the politicians started.

I'm also looking for a Newton replacement. But, in my case, I want it to be an electronic moleskine pocket notebook. There's something that's almost what I want on the market. If the Newton were pocket-sized rather than the size of a VHS tape, I'd probably make do with the 10 year old tech. I've pretty much eliminated all other PDAs because their methods of text entry don't really work for me.

Bear with me.

In 1985 I was 10. A few years earlier, I have one of those clear and distinct memories of wearing a shirt that said "knockout" on it with a picture of a "pretty girl" (something that must have been a gift--not the kind of clothing my mother generally would approve of), and my father and one of his friends discussed how much potential I had to, in fact, become a "knockout."

I was 8 or 9 at the time. The expectation this laid on me was anxiety-producing, to say the least.

In 1985 my parents split and my mother started making plans to move us across the country, back to the bosom of her family. The plan was to drive over the summer, with all the earthly belongings we had that were deemed needful, from San Diego to Buffalo. It was going to be an adventure.

Instead, I came home from school a month before summer vacation to my mom packing up the house and announcing that we were leaving that very night. She sold our bikes, desks (new that year for Christmas, beloved grown-up furniture) and the TV to finance the trip. We didn't get to say goodbye to anyone but one family of friends who drove us to the airport. In secret. My father didn't know until the deed was done.

I saw him once more, a year later, when he came to visit his own family. Then he dropped out of my life and committed suicide when I was 17.

So: anxiety over potentially sexually attractive self + anxiety over lack of control over my own life = subconscious sabotage of appearance by means of hoarding and self-medicating with food? Where does the loss of father figure in?

Hmm. Maybe therapy would be a good idea. Thanks, 1985.

I stand surprisingly corrected...but I have to ask, what possible purpose does it serve? I am certainly not the most "outdoors-y" person under the sun, but I've done my fair share of "outdoors-y" activities with very "outdoors-y" types...and no one has ever been able to either explain it's purpose or recount a practical use for it...

..and you have TWO no less! I stand intrigued. I always figured someone needed such a thing somewhere, as it was important enough to be included on your standard 1980's era SWK; but please tell me what it is used for, I feel very ignorant in "the ways of the awl".

(I hope this doesn't sound sarcastic, I am genuinely both curious and delighted that it has a practical use. I've wanted to know what earthly purpose it served for YEARS.)

There are lots of knives, and they all do one thing, cut. Some are better for cutting some things than others.

When you say pocket knife, do you mean a "swiss army" style tool? If so you still have a lot of choices, all of which depend on what you want it to do.

I carry a knife, pretty much all the time. Depending on where I am, which knife I carry chages.

I also carry a multi-tool. If I had it to buy all over again, I might make the choice to get one with a hoof-pick, instead of the second knife blade.

But maybe not, I suspect the hoof-pick isn't as strong as I'd want it to be, and I dislike combination serrated/smooth edges, so the trade-off might be worse than having to add a hoof-pick to my knapsack when we hit the trail.

Here are the questions I ask myself when selecting a knife.

1: What am I going to cut?
2: How large does it need to be?
2a: Will this blade shape cut what I want it to?
2b: Is this knife a comfortable size to carry?

Will you be using a lot of rope? Doing a lot of knotting? Then you might want to get a knife with a marlinespike/fid.

If you're going to be dealing with a lot of fish, one with a longer blade, and not as deep from edge to back, and a long point (basically a filet knife) might be the thing.

It might be you want to do what I do, and carry a knife for cutting, and a multi-tool (I like the Gerber, because you can select some of the tools, and the opening/locking mechanism is built in a way which makes it more comfortable in the hand) for other things.

Leatherman tools have edges which bite, and Buck has a vise-grip effect, but at the cost of being harder to manipulate. From personal experience it also has some design flaws which lead to sticking, and binding, or just failing. Not such a big deal if you can get to a shop, or live without it for a few weeks while it's being repaired; but if you are away from shore, that could be a problem.

1985 was one year before the Challenger disaster. It was one year before I was diagnosed with acute myelogenous (sp?) leukemia, which had a lot to do with my parents returning me to MPCD. ("If she's going to be in and out of school all the time, she might as well be where she's familiar and happy.") My braces came off early so I wouldn't have to deal with them on top of everything else; they never went back on and I'm just fine with that.) It was a good year for me and pop radio, although it was near the end of that honeymoon period. Also a good year for game shows, which I got to watch a lot of due to being in the hospital instead of school.

I think that may also have been the year Pope John Paul II held Mass at the New Orleans St. Louis Cathedral (unless that happened in 1986), and I wasn't allowed to go not even wearing an anti-germ mask, but a friend brought my prayer book to be blessed and the physical evidence of this was the way the pouring rain caused the dye of her skirt to run and form a tortoiseshell pattern all over the book which was in the skirt's pocket. She kept apologizing. I kept telling her it was beautiful.

I don't have any useful Swiss Army Knife information beyond that I use the awl to flip DIP switches "awl" the time.

I don't carry a pocketknife of any sort -- but I jokingly refer to my nail clippers and (metal) nail file as "the poor man's Swiss Army Knife". The clippers can be made to perform as scissors for small jobs (e.g. opening stubborn plastic bags or trimming threads), and the file emulates a not-very-sharp knife (with enough of a point to pierce most tape), a box/letter opener, and a screwdriver.

kouredios @#210: therapy can make a world of difference, I definitely recommend it. And I'm so sorry about your father.

That's happening quite a bit in Seattle. Albertson's shut its Greenlake store (soon to be high-priced condos), which was right near a large assisted living facility. I used to see lots of folks with walkers going back and forth as I sat and had my coffee ouside the Peet's that was equidistant between the two. Now there's a lot less of that kind of foot traffic.

I don't know if they've set up a shuttle to the nearest big market (a really bad QFC). What I wonder about, though, is how much less exercise a lot of those folks are getting and what effect it's having on their health.

I used to keep a keychain-sized Victorinox this one, but branded with the school I used to work for. Alas, I didn't treat it well and it's kind of rusty now. I find myself missing it all the time. Handy.

I almost cut a huge chunk out of my middle finger in girl scouts (cutting balsa wood of all things) because my girl scout knife was not a lock blade.

Remember that you'll be cutting with your dominant hand, and any damage you do will severely inconvenience you for quite awhile afterwards.

Thirty years later I still have the scar on my finger and nail--although in another thirty years the scar on my nail may be gone. (I almost certainly should have gotten stitches, but emergency room visits were expensive, so no stitches.)

The problem I have with most smartphones is that they're half-vast PDAs and not such great phones. I have a Motorola RAZR that I love because it's small, has a very good keypad, and good sound, even on speaker. I"d have to find a smartphone that was as good a phone.

want it to be an electronic moleskine pocket notebook.

That would be great. I have a real moleskin notebook I use for poetry and random story and animation ideas. I love it. And it's larger than pocketsize, so I have to carry it unless I'm wearing a jacket, and I still love it.

I've pretty much eliminated all other PDAs because their methods of text entry don't really work for me.

I have some concerns about that; my handwriting sucks, and my Newton puts up with it nicely. And I'm not keen on having to use Graffiti or anything else that make me adapt to the device.

(Oddly, I remember my second birthday but not my third. This may be because I got a shiny tricycle horn for my second birthday, and it made an impression on me.)

I do remember Ronald Reagan being president, but I'm pretty sure that was closer to the time when he wasn't anymore....

PDAs/e-books: I wonder how the iPhone is going to be for reading them. Seems like it'd be reasonable, with the fairly large screen. (My boyfriend will be in San Francisco on the day of the launch -- not specfically for the launch, but he'll be there anyway. We get too excited about gadgetry. I doubt I can afford one for quite some time, but....shiny....)

My advice (to anyone considering therapy) is to make a list of what you think you could accomplish by going to therapy. If the finished list seems significant to you, then it's probably worth a shot. If the stuff you want in life is better accomplished by taking a pottery class or volunteering at the senior center, that will become apparent as you write it up.

The other advice I'd give is to try to match the therapist to whatever you're trying to work on. A lot of therapists, when confronted with an issue they haven't studied, will try to use the tools they already have to help you with the problem, rather than referring you to an appropriate specialist. But in my experience this can do more harm than good. For example, if you're troubled by phobias, you don't need the "whatever you're feeling is valid" approach.

I get that feeling more and more too, young at heart as I may be.

JESR @221: I was in my mid-20s in 1985 but had been working full time in publishing for 7 years by then. They're making me feel old, too.

I like your "Friends Rush In" rule. I'm about 2/3 through sorting through all 114 cartons of my books, deciding which go on shelves (about 25%), which go back into storage, and which get culled. My rule for culling seems to be "am I ever going to re-read this again?" It's much harder to decide which books go into storage, and which stay within reach. (This partially explains why there are still 30+ cartons to deal with, eight months after move-in; severe back trouble and fibro flares are the rest of the explanation. One of my friends has dubbed herself Igorina and come over once a month to do the lifting of boxes. The phrase "yeth, mithtreth" is heard frequently.)

I find that Graffiti isn't too difficult, if I stay in lower case. The PDA came with a pair of stickers that live on the inside cover of its case, and tell me how to do Graffiti for when I'm misremembering how to do it.
It isn't really a problem for me, as my PDA functions as an electronic 3-inch D-ring binder, carried for reference purposes, rather than for making notes or other things, where paper works just fine for me.

One thing I will tell you, there's no such thing as being too old for therapy, or waiting too long after a trauma. I'm just starting to find out things about myself I did not get at all*, and I'll be 61 next month. It's actually rather exciting.

* not bad things, just things I didn't realize, that make a difference in the way I live.

Caroline, the iPhone's screen is apparently roughly the same as the TX's, so should probably do just fine assuming the software is available.

I'm a bit wacky even today. I've mostly managed to keep the good parts. I'm able to not alphabetize my vitamins, though it does occasionally bug me that they're not in order.

I'm not all done yet. I'm still in therapy. But great progress has been made.

If you think therapy might be a good idea, it almost certainly is.

You know that the Nokia N800 is not a smartphone, right? (It's a small Linux based tablet.)

I have the Motorola RAZR too, because it's small and so it fits in my pocket. Of course, so does my moleskine notebook. It's only 3.5x5.5in. I'm still looking for the electronic equivalent because everything I scribble enters a computer at some point.

I don't do well with Graffiti either. The Newton does a terrific job with my handwriting. WinXP Tablet results are mixed at best in English. (It's Chinese recognition is usable.) ritePen in conjuction with WinXP Tablet works scarily well. I'm left with the awful feeling that whatever I end up with may have to run Vista.
(At the size of a pocket sized moleskine notebook, you don't get a proper keyboard. So handwriting recognition needs to work.)

When I was getting my comics once a month by mail (a nice big box of stuff), I read them in alphabetical order by title unless a storyline crossed from one mag to another in non-alpha order. But it always griped me to have to put something into the stack out of order.

Heh.

I saw many things in my first real liberty outside the United States of America. Some of them... I wish I had never seen. Others, I hope I never forget.

There are two makers. Victorinox, and Wenger.

I have owned both. For some things I prefer the former, for others, the latter.

I think Wenger has better knives, saws, awls and can openers.

Victorinox I prefer for tweezers, scissors and the eyeglass screwdriver which threads into the corkscrew.

Knives are personal. I'd not keep one in a pocket. Then again, I try not to keep much in my pockets, because I find having lumps on my thighs unpleasant.

I wear, as a rule, a Buck 110 folder on my belt. On the belt I can always get to it, even when sitting down, in the car, on a horse, etc..

One of the things I like about the Buck that it take an edge well, and that edges wears well.

Things I don't like about it... there is nothing to prevent it from slipping back into my hand. In a wet/slippery environment I prefer something with a finger guard, because I've had things slip backwards, and cut me.

Lila (#111) It is a quirk of knife laws, pretty much everywhere, that having a knife; pretty much any knife, is a violation of some statute.

Re Grocery outlet. There is a related chain in the Central Coast of Calif. (Cookie Crock). They are decent. For some things, they are great, best price, and supply, for tomatillos in San Luis Obispo.

But they ran the stupidest add. The guy said he saved $50 a week, which meant he was saving $5,000 per year.

CHiP (#151) The only difference on the models is that. The real knives for the Swiss Army are flat, two-bay, about 3" long. Have one knife, a can opener, and; for the enlisted, a bottle opener; for the officers, a corkscrew.

I never got the one the Swiss officer was supposed to send me, though the Greek one did send me a Greek Marines beret and flash.

Karl Kindred (#211) The awl is designed to make holes in leather. It can also be used for small holes into/through wood.

The reason I prefer the Wenger awl is that it has a hollowed out ege, something like a gouge, which reduces the energy required. That makes it more comfortable in the hand.

My ebook reader of choice is still my Palm TX; reasonably affordable, takes 4Gb SD cards (that's a lot of ebooks, plus mp3s, the odd MP4 movie, games, my life's work tucked away in a corner, and so on), screen is okay, and so on. And they've been around long enough you can find second-hand ones on eBay. Nothing else quite matches it in terms of stability, price, battery life, and flexibility, although some of the cheaper UMPCs could give it a run for the money (f you're willing to carry something that large around everywhere).

I don't really recall much of the first half of 1985, the year sort of starts, in my mind, with June, and ends in the June of 1986.

If I add the events of that chunk of the calendar, it was even more eventful.

Not the best year, but not too bad.

Christopher Davis #95: A notable musical reference to 1985 is in the SR-71 song of the same title, most famously covered by Bowling For Soup (complete with a video referencing a number of 80s music video clichés).

And far and away the best version of that song was done by Richard Thompson on his 1000 Years of Popular Music project.

In 1985 I was three, and not up to much.

Anything we can do to help?

(Afraid I don't know anyone in Mesa/ Phoenix closer than 2 degrees of separation. Hey, Fluorosphere...)

Do you know why the laptop is dead?

Musically I think of Peter Gabriel and Scritti Politti.

Politically, helping out with the construction a figure of a commando/guerilla with a rotating sign label "Terrorist" on one side and "Freedom Fighter" on the other. You gotta look out for those politcally aware drama geeks.

Oh, and that's the year I started formally taking Latin. My Latin is barely good enough to get abi's jokes.

For about 4 months, I taught English at a theraputic boarding school. The academic side of the place was broken; they hired me as a department head but didn't authorize me to make any needed changes and were hopelessly hidebound for all of their 6 years of existence. Plus, they were run for profit. Messed up priorities all over the place, e.g. $4000 wide-screen HDTV for the common area, but only 6 non-functional computers for the whole school building.

But I did learn a lot on the theraputic side of things. Teachers were required to participate in mixed group therapy once a week (the one day the teachers ran the asylum at night), and I learned a lot. One of the things I came away with is the distinction between cognitive and emotional progress. I think I've got the cognitive down; I analyze everything to (if it's possible) a fault. I'm just not sure where to go from there. So I've been seriously thinking about finding someone who can help me with the non-cognitive side of things.

Of course, the rest of the experience at that school was so frustrating and soul-crushing that I think I may have been clinically depressed for those 4 months. Silver lining though, huh?

Thanks Mary Dell. I may take you up on the email invitation.

I beg your pardon if you've already thought of this/tried it, or if your laptop has no such feature.

I went to my second Boskone.

I was listening to WFNX. That was the year the Smithereens' "Especially For You" came out. "Blood and Roses" blew me away.

A lot of the other memories have to do with boys.

The best way I found to get rid of charitable fundraising calls is to tell them "I don't have a lot of money, but I do have a lot of time. Where can I volunteer?" Then I get to be all earnest while they hem and haw around.

After a couple of conversations like that, all the calls from charitable organizations stop. It's disappointing. Sorta.

One diagnosis test you can do is to look at the dark screen with a flashlight.

If your screen shows a very, very dim display, then something might be wrong with your laptop's backlight or the inverter which provides power to the backlight. You'll have to bring your laptop to a shop to deal with those.

If instead it's fully dark, then it could be a problem listed upthread.

------------
If it ends up that repairing the laptop is too expensive, and you have an older laptop, there's an inexpensive and 'avoid shopping for a new laptop' Ebay method:

My partner-in-time's older laptop broke. He went onto Ebay and found an identical laptop for sale at $100- cheap because it had no hard drive. He bought it and swapped in his own laptop's hard drive. Instant brain transplant.

(Yes, I've been there, got the pointy ears to show for it.)

Having been shopping today, I now have our local "used food" store's jingle running through my head--as well as a litre of orange juice for 79 cents (among other things). Yay vitamins.

Best luck to Teresa's laptop.

My ebook reader of choice is still my Palm TX; reasonably affordable, takes 4Gb SD cards

Note to those who may be buying: the TX does not take SD_HC_ cards, which are what most 4Gb cards are (it's a newer standard; SD technically doesn't support anything bigger than 2Gb). Some SD 4Gb cards are crap. User consensus seems to be in favor of Transcend's 150x cards (Newegg has them for about $40), which I have and works fiine.

And they've been around long enough you can find second-hand ones on eBay.

Where I got mine, though it purported to be basically new and I have no reason to doubt it--anyway, at half price it was not guilt-inducing. There are definitely deals to be had there.

Nothing else quite matches it in terms of stability, price, battery life, and flexibility

I can easily get several hours of straight use out of mine. And the *other* reason I got a Palm over a Windows Mobile machine is the breadth of free and shareware software written by users--great stuff.

I really need to write up a "living with my TX" post so I can point to it in future, with all my software additions and so forth.

* * *

Teresa, I hope your laptop is only mostly dead.

"My widowed uncle is marrying a long-time friend who lost her spouse many years ago in Mesa tomorrow, if you're in the mood for a wedding."

The first is the Swiss Army knife, which mostly gets used as everything but a knife - screwdriver, scissors, etc. The knife-blades are occasionally good for small fine use, e.g. first aid, fine crafts in place of an Exacto knife, etc.

The other is a medium-sized lockback knife with one hand opening and a pocket clip. This one is good for knife-qua-knife use; I can go from thinking I need it to having it open in my hand in about a second, and can fold it up and put it away again nearly as fast. I use it a number of times a day without ever thinking about it, and although you'd think that carrying a potentially weapon-like knife would alarm people, they never notice it. When I've taken it out to slice open a box (for instance) it's occasionally startled people who I've carried it in front of for years, because they had never noticed it. I have run through several different models like this, between losing/misplacing them and just changing them, so I have a couple recommendations on this.

Opening type: The fast-open knife types I've used all open with a kind of rotating flick of the thumb on some part of the blade, and there are 3 basic variations I've seen: a clip or lever thing on the back of the blade; a small thumb stud, on the side of the blade, or a hole cut out of the blade which the tip of your thumb fits into. The hole-type opener works by far the best, and (if properly sized/shaped) is the only one you can reliably open one-handed with work gloves on. Spyderco had a patent on the cut-out opener, but some other makers have licensed it and the patent may have expired by now.

Clip types: Plastic pocket clips don't have enough strength and springiness to keep the knife safely in your pocket. Avoid; I lost one this way. Only buy the kind with metal clips. Some clip to your pocket with the (folded) point of the blade downward, some with it upward. They take a different type of hand motion to draw and open it, but either is equally easy to use.

Invertable clips: Some knives let you unscrew and move the pocket clip to the reverse side and/or end of the knife. If you're a leftie, you should definitely get one with an invertible clip, so you can carry it in your left pocket and still use it.

Best value I've found in this type of knife: the Gerber EZ-Out or EZ-Out Jr.

It uses the cut-out thumb opener type, has (had?) a metal pocket clip, decent quality blade (high-strength stainless, holds a decent edge), come in either an under 3" or 3.75" blade size (3" or 4" folded) and costs less than $30.

Best knife in this style will be a matter of opinion, personal taste, and budget. You can spend $100s for a nice folder from Benchmade or the like (and then lose it overboard the next day...) and I've still not found the perfect one, but the Spydercos and Gerbers are very good.

(Actually, it's pretty catchy. :-)

This is too bad - while I'm not a fan of Sony (love their hardware, hate their opinions on too many subjects - and inserting rootkits on their CDs was the last straw), I was hoping the epaper devices would have a more auspicious beginning.

My ebook reader of choice is still my Palm TX; reasonably affordable, takes 4Gb SD cards (that's a lot of ebooks, plus mp3s, the odd MP4 movie, games, my life's work tucked away in a corner, and so on), screen is okay, and so on. And they've been around long enough you can find second-hand ones on eBay. Nothing else quite matches it in terms of stability, price, battery life, and flexibility, although some of the cheaper UMPCs could give it a run for the money (f you're willing to carry something that large around everywhere).

My first PDA was a Newton 120, and I kind of liked its size a lot - small enough to fit (barely) in my back pocket (width and depth wise, anyways, when I'm wearing khakis - height... not so much), big enough to make me want to take it out and use it, and with a good enough resolution to allow for reading books (I just found it again, the other day, and it still has the last books I was reading* on it - Cremation of Dan McGee, The Prince, and The Eye of Argon

Currently, I'm using a Sony Clie SJ-22 (although I'm on the lookout for a UX-50 if I can get one cheap - the SJ-22 has seen better days, at this point), and it does fine as a book reader - the screen is smaller than I would like (and PDFs are basically impossible), but it is much more portable (and unobtrusive) than the Newton was. (Although if I were to stumble across a cheap Newton 2100, I wouldn't turn it down - at worst, it would make a decent reader for on the trail, being nice and rugged).

There aren't really any devices out there (or on the drawing boards) that are what I really want in a book reader/handheld device, but I'm afraid my desires regarding such a widget are unusual and peculiar, and will likely have to wait until micromanufacturing/CADAM are a bit more advanced, and I can get someone to build me something to order. The iPhone is, however, something I'm paying close attention to...

*Or, at least, had on it. AIR, I was trying to memorize Cremation, was re-reading The Prince for a character study, and, well, the myriad uses of The Eye of Argon should be obvious, but include making Rich Dansky drink a lot more at a local brewhaus than he ought to...

Kevin Marks, you don't need to keep reposting.

The Royals had battled back from a 3-1 deficit to get into the Series against my first favorite team, the St. Louis Cardinals*, and had found themselves in the same position before winning Game 5. The Cards go up 1-0 in the 8th, and I watch with extremely mixed feelings as the bottom of the 9th rolls around. Then Don Denkenger grants Jorge Orta absolution at first base, and a hit, a botched sacrifice and an intentional walk later, it's Dane Iorg facing Todd Worrell with the bases loaded. Sitting in the right field stands, I have a perfect view as Iorg lofts a single which Andy Van Slyke fields on one hop and rifles home. Ball and runner reach home nearly simultaneously, and I remember distinctly thinking (if not yelling) "Make the damn call!" at the umpire. His arms flash "safe," and the place goes berserk.

Oddly enough, when I finally get home and watch the play in real time, I discover there was no hesitation or delay in the call at the plate. A wonderful example of time dilation/personal relativity I have never forgotten.

*I grew up in KC in the '60s; we didn't have major league baseball, but rather the A's, who were effectively a Yankees farm team. After becoming a Cards fan, I discovered my mother grew up in Palatine, IL, and has always been a diehard Cubs fan. Poor woman.

After a minor hoo hoo with their toddler, I excused myself and walked over to a sports bar to watch the end of the game. Came back for more cake, etc. glowing with the Royal's win.

As for 1985, I'm afraid I only existed for the last twelve days of it. They were pretty eventful for a newborn, though; apparently my doctor had to make me a house call on Christmas Eve in a snowstorm.

...or I guess I could have saved that insignificant little tidbit for the next open thread...

Well, so far, mostly from the online store attached to the Sony Reader PC software, but I've used up the $50 credit I got when I bought the reader, plus a bit more in getting all my Neil Stephenson in one place, and now I find that the selection at that bookstore is rather limited. I went there the other night and only found one book I was a little interested in, which I ended up not getting.

Since you can load PDFs on the reader, I'll likely be loading some work-related stuff. But I'm really only now beginning to look around for other online sources. Stay tuned; I'll post on an Open Thread or over in my blog when something turns up. I suppose I could put the wife's novel-in-progress on there as well.

You mention not reading anything smaller than a paperback. The Sony reader is about the size of a paperback, and you can select the text size.

And the whole wedding coincidence - very odd and cool.

And the whole wedding coincidence - very odd and cool.

Season, time of day.
Just seventeen syllables.
Very short poem.

I agree that the first thing to decide is the tasks for which the knife will be used. The problem is that I want this knife for the unexpected tasks I don't know about yet. My work will be taking me out to a river delta to work with environmental sensors, in and out of the water, and I'll have a good toolbox on the shore, filled with all the things I think I'll need (including several cutting tools). What I'm looking for is a tool to help handle the unexpected.

Your suggestions have given me a lot to think about, and some places to start looking. Thanks again!

'As in, "a moment when I got to be a scary fan."'

Of Charles Stross, as it happens.

On a different front: is there anybody here taking gabapentin and/or meloxicam for nerve pain? I'm looking for experiences, especially with interactions with other pain management drugs. (I'm taking them for hand pain, but I also have other pain that they don't seem to be helping -- could they be exacerbating? -- and I've been told I can't take hydrocodone or any NSAID while I'm on these)

Mary Dell, #222: Even more importantly, if you have any social or sexual traits which are outside the mainstream, the Kink-Aware Professionals List is a good place to start looking. The last thing you need is a therapist who will decide, on the basis of their own prejudices, that your non-traditionality is the root of all your problems and must be eradicated first!

BTW, I second (third? whatever) the recommendation for therapy. I've turned to its less-intense form, counseling, several times at major stress points in my life, and found it well worth my while; and I've seen friends who had far worse problems than any I've ever had to deal with get their lives back as a result of it.

Paula, #270: Was your friends' TV on at the time?

In '85, I was twenty-nine...

Which means I was living with the person who is now my ex, though we hadn't yet become engaged. That might be the year we evicted the Ex-Roommate From Hell, though I can't be sure. Scanning the Billboard Top 100 for that year on iTunes doesn't provide me with any cues; I'd cut way back on my radio listening by then. That was also during the period when I had no TV, and before I got a PC. I was working as a computer programmer for a benefits consulting firm. I didn't go to Worldcon that year. Beyond that, it doesn't seem to have been very memorable.

In January of 1985 my father, from whom I'd been estranged for more than 15 years, had a heart attack, and I went back to New York to be there. He survived, but our estrangement resumed shortly after he got better.

Later that year the 300 person division of Tektronix that I worked for (the Graphic Workstation Division) was flushed down the toilet, and everyone in it was given 2 months to find another job in the company before being laid off. Being able to read handwriting on walls, I had quit three weeks before and gone to a small startup company. That startup lasted another year and a half, so you can't blame its demise on 1985.

That was also the year that our older son was diagnosed as ADHD and ODD, and the doctor making the diagnosis told us there was one chance in 6 that our son wouldn't be sent to juvie before his 18th birthday. 1985 doesn't get the credit for the fact that he did not go to jail, that he went to college, got a doctorate, and is now in a tenure-track professorship.*

Not my favorite year.

* Damn right I'm proud of him.

A web forum where you might get useful results is at Dr. Bobs. It is a neurology and psychology focused discussion forum. I did a quick search and found that gabapentin / neurontin and its interactions with other drugs gets discussed there.

My best memory of the whole year is the night that August (the 8th, IIRC) I came home -- my parents' home; I was on vacation -- from the Bruce Springsteen concert at Three Rivers Stadium. (This was also the last time I was at Three Rivers.) Bruce had dedicated his song "My Hometown" to Homestead, Pa., which was suffering a lot of problems relating to the demise of the steel industry in the Monongahela Valley. He also gave a very large check to the local food bank there. This hit close to home because Homestead was, in fact, Mom's hometown, and I couldn't wait to tell her about it.

So I got home a bit after midnight, and Mom was waiting in the living room to tell *me* -- it had been on the 11 o'clock news! It made her really happy.

Later that same month I scored two tickets to the opening game of the Pitt football season and took my dad to his first and last ever Pitt football game. It turned out that after decades of watching Pitt football and putting a daughter -- moi -- through two degrees worth of school there he'd *never* been to a Pitt game; I thought that was a situation that needed to be remedied. (It was my last game at Pitt Stadium, too. Both stadia have since been replaced by Heinz Field.)

Also, my two youngest nephews were born that December. (Nona @271, you were apparently born in the middle of them! Tommy was born on the 14th and Josh on the 30th.)

That is, one which has a fixed handle, and some sort of finger guard.

That will make it handy, tolerably rigid and easy to get at/use.

My only problem with gabapentin a.k.a. Neurontin is that I sometimes get weird angry/irritable moods if I take it during the day, so I only take it at bedtime.

I remember small, vague details: that they had grape flavoured Fanta in Indonesia. The pineapple drinks they make there, and in Singapore. The smell. The cartoon sheets on one bed. Getting a little souvenir model of the Eiffel Tower.

Being, for some odd reason, scared of the emblem of Indonesia's national airline: Garuda, the phoenix. The little in-flight things airlines give to four-year-olds. Tiny wooden clogs from the Netherlands - blue with flowers on - and poffertjes.

How I trimmed my fringe because it was getting in my eyes, and cut it too short, and my parents insisted I get the rest of my hair cut short to match, and how upset I was. Hapi-coats and pretty cotton pyjamas, and a Chinese doll with its own baby doll, both in silk pyjamas.

How the culture of Indonesia generally is extremely supportive of and affectionate towards small children, and how, as a very stand-offish child, I was freaked out by all the strangers who wanted to pat me and talk to me. My parents coaxing me to at least say "terimakasi" (thank you.)

Not having to deal with other children - it was a nice break from that, between creche and school. There was my brother, but he was fifteen, not as bad.

I had already been going to cons for a few years and was quite grumpy that at 17 I couldn't come up with a way to get to Australia, so I missed worldcon for the first time since I'd started going.

I entered my first-ever masquerade in a classic Star Trek uniform.

I acquired a wicked stepmother young enough to have once been mistaken for my sister.

The second friend of my own age to die either was in an accident or killed herself via train. Twenty-two years later I am still not certain.

It was also my first year in a real grown-up-ish relationship, and I did a lot of growing up very quickly. (I had a -- shall we say, undersocialized -- infancy; bullying and a single-sex school didn't help, either.)

It was the year I went to my first SF convention (Yorcon III in Leeds, IIRC) and decided I enjoyed fandom and wanted in. It also probably gave rise to the legends about me pursuing editors with a carrier bag full of manuscripts. (See socialization deficiency above.)

I spent a chunk of the summer doing an unpaid internship in a teaching hospital pharmacy department, and a chunk studying for and (successfully) resitting the exams in heterocyclic organic chemistry that I'd failed at the end of year 2.

I don't really remember it that clearly. A lot of things changed inside my head in 1984-86, and by the end of 1985 I wasn't the same person I was at the beginning of the year.

I particularly like the convergence of picture and caption for FANLIB WHOLLY EXPLODED and for WE WERE AFRAID OF THIS.

A month or so later my grandmother was diagnosed with Breast cancer, so my mother is all the more convinced that it was an act of God that got her home early.

There were times when my father's anger could be scary, but the only things he ever hit that I can recall were walls. They suffered horribly, though.

Now I feel like I've been a horrible downer on this thread, and I don't mean to be. The coincidence of Teresa and Linkmeister becoming cousins-in-law is quite glee-making.

1985 was also the year we went camping in Spain, travelling by coach nonstop all the way from Calais. My mother gave out puzzles and home-made doll's clothes at scheduled intervals to keep my sister and me occupied on the journey. And it might have been the year my Sindy doll's arms fell off. They were held in by an elastic band that hooked them together inside her torso, and the elastic broke. I wrote a letter to the manufacturers saying Matilda was my favourite and please mend her, and they did. But the second time it happened, I think my mother thought it would be unreasonable to write to them again. So one day after school she told me she had taken Matilda back to the toy shop and by coincidence, the Sindy man was there. As well as mending her arms he gave her a good clean, brushed all the tangles out of her hair, replaced her lost shoes and her torn dress, and (the part my mother didn't know about) did something to her ankle joints, which were a bit broken too. In fact, by the time he had finished Matilda looked just like new! I must have been very gullible because I believed for years that this was exactly what had happened.

I probably read an awful lot of Enid Blyton that year. I think it was also when I started reading Narnia. And on my birthday I cashed in £1.50's worth of school book club stamps to buy Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer, a slow-burning favourite in which I still find new bits to like when I reread it now.

Some of the school stories had clearly been revised after 1971 because the children weren't getting their pocket money in shillings any more, but almost nothing else seemed to have changed. I found this very confusing. After Charlotte Sometimes opened my eyes to the idea that Things Were Different In The Past, I wanted to know how they were different.

* I was astonished, and pleased, to learn that Ransome had worked for Trotsky. Makes the books seem that much more adventurous in retrospect.

My personal memories involve great music shows (especially in the Sixties and Nineties), umpteen interesting and productive years at the Locus home base, plus the ongoing happy relationship/marriage -- so I certainly can't complain. {Even if I grouch at minor stuff, like NBC not carrying the men's semifinals at the French Open live for my time zone or complete for anyone in the US, grumble grumble.} Music in 1985? Kind of a lean year for show-going, though I saw Sting in concert that summer.

The latest is that the City government has promised to increase their library spending a little bit, in return for which the library must keep all branches at at least the same level of services for the next three years. And the number of layoffs has dropped from sixty to six, four of which are interns. And while I hate to say it about a situation where two probably-awesome probably-beloved people will lose their jobs, I'll say it anyway: hooray!!

For now.

(...must... control urge... must... NOT!... comment...)

1985 was the year I graduated from college and started library school. It was also the year my grandmother died.

In 1985, I (and my wife, who still is) celebrated our first wedding anniversary, and (iirc) I was primarily working in IBM Script (aka DCF), on mainframes. But we did have a Macintosh to mainframe/Xerox 9700 graphics system up and running.

ML is a community. Communities worth the name rejoice and celebrate in the good times, and sympathize and support in the bad times. One of the interesting features of an internet community like ML is that it's easy to do both at once. So your blues can't bring the wedding down; go ahead and say what you need to, and there will be someone here to listen. And if you can get some relief from that, you may be able to listen to someone else's blues some other time, and help them.

I'm really processing a lot right now, as my grandfather is also getting close to the end in hospice. It makes sense that so much is surfacing for me at the moment.

That, and I blew up at my husband this morning for treating me like "default parent." Too much "sky is not evil" for me!

It's all good now. We got take out from our favorite Chinese-Japanese-Korean place, I planted my vegetables finally, and tomorrow I get to play D&D. I'm thinking about talking to a friend in Health Services at my alma mater about finding an appropriate therapist. She's been spending a lot of time in Kenya and just emailed me yesterday that she was home for the next two months, so that's fortuitous.

On a different front: is there anybody here taking gabapentin and/or meloxicam for nerve pain? I'm looking for experiences, especially with interactions with other pain management drugs. (I'm taking them for hand pain, but I also have other pain that they don't seem to be helping -- could they be exacerbating? -- and I've been told I can't take hydrocodone or any NSAID while I'm on these)

That's... interesting. I'm currently taking 1800mg/day of gabapentin for neuropathy in my hands and feet (which is apparently caused by the fibromyalgia). Am also prescribed daily hydrocodone (vicodin) and NSAID (naproxen) (chronic intractable daily migraine plus the various fibro pain plus inoperable wrecked knee, etc., ad infinitum); have had no problem interactions, though the doctor doesn't want me taking any aspirin on top of that mixture (as well as the umpteen other medications).

Kathryn from Sunnyvale @ #285:

Thank you for that link!

The thing that sticks out for me is that in 1985, you were 10 years old. You're a lot older now, you've got a lot more tools to work with, you've got a lot more emotional experience under your belt. But sometimes people look back on their younger experiences and hold themselves up to expectations based on who they are now, what they know now. I don't know if you're doing that, but it sounds like at the time you had quite a bit to deal with for a ten year old.

It was SFnal. Most things were familiar enough that every so often, I'd get tripped-up. Like at the first party where we'd sing to songs by bands of that era (Duran Duran, Van Halen, U2 etc). Then "Six Months In a Leaky Boat" by this band came on. Everyone kept singing; I'd never heard it before in my life. The sense of alienation was intense.

See also:
Live-Aid, "Do They Know It's Christmas?", "We are the World".

Good for you. Take the pleasure that you need out of Life. Still, be careful with that broadsword. Heheheh...

Serge: You mean dagger! I'm a rogue. :D

Human? Elfin? No matter what kind of rogue you are, take care of yourself.

It's a group of old college friends who are all still in the area. My 10-year reunion is this weekend, but meeting twice monthly for campaign is my kind of reunion, for sure. It's the best kind of self-care.

Indeed. Take that, you inner conflict! For me, it's like when I've spent a whole day using my brain resolving computer issues. Afterwards, I'll treat myself with a trip to the comic-book store, where one can find stories where problems are resolved in a more physical manner. Which reminds me that I should probably take up archery again.

From experience, I can tell you that no matter how ugly something is, once you put it out there, it starts to be easier to deal with.

In 1986, the executive VP wrote me a letter insisting I come back to work full time, quit, or go on disability. The doctors had been telling me for two years that I had to go on disability, so I did that. I think the eVP was surprised -- they seemed to think I was goofing off.

Also, I am a pretty big Buffy fan, but I've never seen Angel. Is it worth it? How similar are the two? Advice would be appreciated.

Basically, its lows are a lot lower than the worst of BtVS, but its highs are nicely high. From memory, the most taxing parts are the first several episodes of Season 1, and much of Season 4.

Like its parent show, the single most annoying character is the one the show is named after.

Thanks Linkmeister. I was more worried about bringing the whole thread down. One of the things I love about ML is the sustained glee. But I've also noted the serious sincerity when called for. It's a special, special place.

Heresiarch: I think Angel is worth it, but I don't love it as much as Buffy or Firefly. In fact, I haven't watched all of it yet, though I own most seasons on DVD. It was never really appointment TV for me.

OTOH, as long as I don't watch all of it, there will still be new Joss out there waiting for me, so when I do start watching it again, I'll go slow.

A very good description of Season 4, by Pbaabe: "It's kinda like a bad dream I had--a very strange, and violent, at times inappropriately erotic dream."

Yay!

You mean Fargo was still alive at that point??

Perhaps they were like Nero Wolfe, who owned a television in order to better appreciate the pleasure of not watching it. (Occasionally, he would turn it on solely in order to have the satisfaction of turning it off.)

(Season Five is problematic, but mostly -- in my opinion, anyhow -- because the show got unfairly cheated of its sixth season, and a bunch of stuff that should have played out at length got drastically foreshortened in the name of closure.)

Greg London @#314: But sometimes people look back on their younger experiences and hold themselves up to expectations based on who they are now, what they know now.

Amen to that. I was kind of shocked the day I, at 34 years old, sat next to an 11-year-old girl on a plane for 4 hours and realized how incredibly young 11 is! I had always blamed myself for being naive at that age, but of course children aren't naive; they're actually innocent, which is different.

But if I had more emotional energy, the email I just got would make me start running in little circles screaming "Kalamazookalamazookalamazoo!!!!" and performing obscure galliard variations. This leads directly back to dead friends, of course; joy streaked through with pain and loss because the very first person to share this with is not available.

The one here in Corvallis expanded a couple of years ago and is the size of a regular grocery store, with produce and a big frozen section. I like it because you can often get really good deals on things like canned beans and tomatoes, which I use a lot of, and on different kinds of 'gourmet' sausages and a pretty good variety of cheese, which I enjoy but are often prohibitively expensive in regular stores.

It's always funny to find "Hellman's" mayonnaise (here west of the Rockies, we call it "Best Foods.") The only problem is when they stock something unfamiliar that I really get to like (such as for a while they had a very nice mildish curry sauce by Patak's for several months) and then one day it's all gone and I discover that the only way for me to get it is to buy it online (for a lot more than I ever paid at the Scratch n Dent, of course). Sigh.

But it is a lovely store, all the same.

I would say so. Both Dresden Files and Blood Ties generated a "hey, this is -good-!" reaction here (including from a fan of both book series). I don't know how much of that was from proper expectation calibration, though.

Tangenting off, in the ungood category we have Cthulhu the Movie, co-starring Tori Spelling. At least it's not a musical (although "Cthulhu F'htagan" means "No Worries").

It was some time during the grad school years (it took me 4 years to finish) that I decided that the only house work that "had" to be done was take out the trash, do the laundry and do the dishes. Everything else was optional, at least until the end of the semester.

Re: 1985. In 1985, I went to kindergarten, and liked it. A future writing partner and I began our collaboration by writing on each other's papers, and had to be separated. My sister broke her arm when she was pushed off a slide by a neighbor's kid (she wanted to go down the slide, and pushed him first). 1985 was also the year the L.A. Critics declared "Brazil" the best film of the year, despite the fact that it hadn't been released yet. Universal was embarrassed into releasing it. God bless the L.A. Film Critics Assocation.

But that was what led to some serious breakthroughs in therapy* (I'd been going for several years, but had been carefully skirting around important issues until then) and, I think, some drastic improvements mentally. (I'm still neurotic, but I don't think I'm WILDLY neurotic anymore.)

*Is "therapy" the newest meme for Making Light? The thought also comes to me to wonder if progressives are the people who got therapy, and conservatives are the people who didn't.

I'm sorry about your friend Susan. "Emotional energy" is a good term. I'm low in it right now as well since I visited my grandfather in hospice. That must account for the way I've been hit broadside with old issues: no energy to keep up my control mask.

And more Cthulhu! Is there something about mid-June and Cthulhu I should know about?

Wait, Tori Spelling is in Chtulhu? Now I haven't seen her in a while, but I'm certain she doesn't have enough tentacles for the part.

As for counselling, I have been blackmailed into going to it twice, by two different people. Both times, I solved the problem that was causing the friction myself, just to get the therapist out of my head. Only go if you freely choose to go.

-----
* with a real human being, as opposed to, say, Spock or Therem Harth rem ir Estraven.
† which was a pattern for me, to the point that I now think the boyfriend who decided to go see the Texas Chainsaw Massacre instead of taking me to his prom did a good thing.

That sounds like a variant of the old "everyone's damaged; everyone needs therapy" idea. I don't buy that, personally. For me, step 1 in getting past the worst of my issues was realizing that many people are walking around without a thousand pounds of baggage. Therapy's what's helped me to become (mostly) one of them.

kouredios @#346: it's very common for old wounds to re-open when you go through a related experience. Your Grandfather's illness (very sorry to hear about that, by the way) is probably putting you in mind of losing your father, and whatever you felt then that you weren't able to express.

Being in the throes of a PhD train-wreck really didn't help. The saying "Doing a Phd is a lot like repeatedly bashing your head against a brick wall; it's really nice when you stop" was apt. In my case, it was not completing it, but giving it away that salvaged my sanity. That and the love of a good woman.

Therapy is particularly helpful if you've had someone else's emotional sense of events imposed on you, and not been encouraged to develop your own.

I would say it's essential in that case. I thought I could put things back together myself, and it took me several decades (as in 3 or 4 of them) to realize that it just wasn't going to happen without help. As happy as I am now to be getting out from under that weight of other people's judgements, I do wish I'd started a lot sooner.

Greg @ 343

I agree about season 5 of Angel. Just remembering that arc of Fred and Wesley makes my hair stand on end, especially their scene in the last episode. And damn, I just realized what that scene's been resonating with in my head for the last 3 or 4 years: the scene in "Lord of Light" where Sam and Kali spend a night together before Kali's wedding with Yama and Sam's execution.

Kouredios @ 336

Is there something about mid-June and Cthulhu I should know about?

Not until 2014. See This document. WARNING: This information is classified Most Secret, and Restricted to clearance CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN under the meaning of the Official Secrets Act. If you are not cleared for at least this level of sensitive information, do not access this link.

If anyone would like to have lunch in NYC with me this Friday, please drop a line to the email address, with LUNCH TACO in the subject so I don't think it's trash....

FWIW, I've really been enjoying Bones on Fox; it's got David Boreanaz playing a character I describe as "Angel with all the wit and considerably less angst," a wonderful lead character for him to bounce off of, and a set of supporting characters who will be instantly understandable to most of the readers here. If you're not the type to get seriously torqued by occasional lapses into Trek-science or just plain bad science, give it a try.

abi, #348: Amen, sistah! While it's horribly frustrating to watch someone you know tying themselves in knots over something that therapy might straighten out, it's like dealing with an addiction: you can't FORCE someone to do it and expect good results. The motivation has to be internal.

Yep. You'd be surprised how many people look at their childhood experiences through their adult eyes and beat themselves up for doing something or not doing something that seems obvious to them now.

The idea is that the mind isn't aware of it's own changes. So all experiences and memories get played through whatever your current mindset happens to be. Your mind doesn't record your emotional development with the memory of that nasty event that happened when you were five, so the memory replays through whatever mindset you're in now, and you have no way of experiencing what your mindset was like then.

It comes up once in a while when I'm life coaching. I'm not sure if the description of what's going on in the mind is technically accurate, but it helps clients put their memories into perspective, so it works for me.

As for whether therapy, coaching, whatever is a good thing, it all depends on whether you're stuck enough that you're willing to accept outside help. I had one client where our phone calls were like pulling teeth. After the third call, I suggested that I wasn't the right coach for them. I don't think they were ready. Which is fine. I just didn't want to waste our time or his money.

Second the mention of "Bones". The characters are interesting, and changing believably over time, the plots are mostly interesting, and the science isn't always out the window. My major problem is that, as a co-worker said about CSI the other day, "They've got way better user interfaces than we do."

And I really can't wait to hear what Bones and Seeley have to say to the minister when the new season starts.

Glad to hear from you!

Also, Making Light has permalinks. This is a cool thing for a blog to have and should be encouraged.

Mary Dell @335 and Greg London @356 -

I was kind of shocked the day I, at 34 years old, sat next to an 11-year-old girl on a plane for 4 hours and realized how incredibly young 11 is!

The idea is that the mind isn't aware of it's own changes.

I am not entirely convinced that this is wrong to do so long as I make allowances for how I acted at the time, having been only 7, 11, 16, etc. at the time.

This isn't coming out the way I mean it. I think I get closer if I say that for just about every time I remember my parents say, "You'll understand when you're older," I can confidently say, "I'm older now, and my opinion hasn't changed," at least where my childhood outrage at perceived injustice came into play. But there's also the sense that the person that is "me" is still "me."

Maybe I should worry that I haven't grown up nearly as much as I think I have. The alternate conclusion, that I was a lot more grown up at the time than I ought to have been, seems a bit too simultaneously self-congratulatory and tragic to be countenanced. But when I fell in love with a boy in 3rd grade, I remember it feeling a hell of a lot like when I fell in love with my husband-to-be. When I got bullied in 6th grade, it felt awfully like when I got bullied by a drunk idjit in the crowd of a Cowboy Mouth show in Denver last month. Some situations I'm better equipped to deal with now than then, and some I'm still hopeless at. Doesn't this crap ever get easier?

That didn't end up where I thought it was going. I hope it's at least fairly evident what I'm circumlocuting, if I'm not managing to get at it directly.

This summer I'm going to be doing some field research work, some of it in boats. One piece of standard equipment that many of my peers seem to bring with them is a pocket knife. Everyone has a different knife. I'm trying to choose one for myself, but I am bewildered and confused.

Will there be salt water involved? Do you have a bit of a budget? If so, then look at Boye Dendritic Cobalt Boat Knives, which stay ungodly sharp forever. If I had the cash I'd carry one: since I don't I tend to carry a Kershaw Leek pocketknife and a Gerber multitool.

Bruce Cohen, SpeakerToManagers:

I've been seriously thinking about a Palm now that my Newton** is on its last legs. * Yes, an Apple Newton 2100. If you think a Sony E-Reader is too big, then you don't even want to think about this monster. But the screen is large and has good resolution even by today's standards, and I've read books on it quite comfortably. Still, because the software is pretty much unmaintainable anymore, I use less and less of its capabilities. These days it's primarily an encrypted password store.

You do know there's a new, OSX native sync package out for the Newton as well as one in final development for Windows, don't you? As it is, since my 2100 does almost everything I need to do I'm just getting a n800 to go along with it as a web browser--can't do SSL with a Newton unfortunately...

You do know there's a new, OSX native sync package out for the Newton

No, I didn't; thank you very much for telling me about that. Unfortunately my serial port dongle disappeared awhile ago, and I've been waiting for one to show up on EBay (googling hasn't spotted one anywhere else yet).

*blush* Thank you for those kind words. I admit I was a little hesitant about hitting 'post' after I wrote that; I'm relatively new here, only been reading about 4 months and posting for a little over 3. But I've seen how people care for each other here, and I wanted you all to know I feel the same way.

Just finding ML this year was very important to me; I needed to know there was a place like this somewhere, and that I could be a part of it.

One more Angel/Buffy question: Does the new Buffy comic, season 8, take place the year immediately after season 7? In other words, does it take place during Angel season 5? I heard a bit when it first came out, but nothing since--how is it?

Apologies for all the questions, but I'm a cautious shopper, and I trust you guys' opinions. =)

Would say more but I've not ROT-13ed before and I don't learn well after midnight.

As for the comic's quality, it is very, very good.

Hooboy, does that sound familiar! Moreover, the things they said that make sense to me now made sense to me from the start. As far as I can tell, there is no topic of disagreement upon which the mere fact of my getting older has caused me to change my opinion and agree with them -- although there are some things that I understand better from my adult perspective, I still ultimately disagree with their statements and/or actions.

Lee & Nicole, re "understanding when you're older"--I have an older sister who confidently expected me to grow up to be her. Didn't happen.

And re downers: my mother, at 89, has decided she's tired and is no longer going to eat or drink. Hospice care commences ASAP. Thanks to the fluorosphere for giving me a calm and pleasant place to wait this out.

Do you know what character encoding that page is in? My browser is set for UTF-8, which is what everyone should be using in an international world, and there are a whole bunch of characters (decorating symbols, I would guess by their placement) that won't display. I tried some other encodings like ISO 8897-1 and MacRoman, but no joy.

Unfortunately my serial port dongle disappeared awhile ago, and I've been waiting for one to show up on EBay (googling hasn't spotted one anywhere else yet).

They show up pretty frequently at newtontalk.net, and I think that J&K Sales has them still available.

I liked Illyria. I wanted to hear more of her story. Curiously, considering the circumstances in which she came into the world, she felt like a breath of hope. (V yvxr gb guvax gung fur pbhyq abg unir gnxra ba gung nfcrpg unq fur orra va n qvssrerag obql, naq gung va fbzr jnl Serq'f angher jnf erivirq va ure ol Jrfyrl'f nterrzrag gb or ure thvqr: znxrf uvf qrngu, naq snvyher ng gur cbvag bs qrngu, yrff hggreyl pehry naq zrnavatyrff).

I do kind of like the darkness of it all in a way. Some truly poetic moments.

It claims to be in ISO-8859-1 (which would have been my first guess), but viewing it with that encoding set doesn't seem to help either.

I'm inclined to the suspicion that it's a piece of (probably-WYSIWYG-)HTML-editor-randomness unrelated to character encoding.

Thanks, that's the conclusion I reached after fiddling with it some more. Moderately irritating.

Jennyanydots @ 375

I agree about liking the darkness and specifically about Illyria and her relationship to (but not quite with) Wesley. I'm not sure that ending was really organic to the arc that Whedon and Minear had worked out for the series. I think it was a result of the premature cancellation. In fact, I think one way to read the very ending is as a commentary on the never-ending struggle between creative artists and the distributors and sellers of their work.

Think of Angel and his band as Whedon and the rest of the show's crew and cast, Wolfram and Hart and the Council as the network, and the Powers that Be as the general audience (not just the Angel fans) and you'll see what I mean.

Before joining the gang in 1981, I just picked up the occasional issue at Dark Carnival (including the fateful one with the Help Wanted announcement), and actually I've *never* subscribed -- since both the full-time workers and regular contributors get free copies. But the more subscribers the merrier! (Especially since I no longer have to process them by hand, on a typewriter in the offices, as was done in olden times.)

Thanks again, and my encrypted password file that hasn't been backed up in months also thanks you.

Yes, you know me. And your question reminds me that I haven't done a good job of telling folks about the change in plans for the move. I'll be moving back to Kansas* in early/mid Sept. instead of June. We ended up moving to the new library in May instead of February, and I'm sticking around for three months extra so I didn't have to try to get myself moved at the same time I was helping move the library.

* feel free to insert comments about ruby slippers/clicking heels/don't think we're in Kansas at this point.

Are you familiar with the Callahan's stories? At its best, a virtual community is like that--shared pain lessened, shared joy multiplied. (A long time ago, I was an alt.callahans reader, and for all tghe flamewars and misunderstanding and dramatics at times, it could also be that kind of community. Here, we may benefit from having Teresa play Fast Eddie sometimes, albeit with disemvowelment instead of a blackjack.)

My big problem is not letting the virtual community become so much of a focus that I lose touch with the physical communities I'm also a part of.

One complicating factor here: A lot of us were pretty old-acting adults, by some combination of intelligence and interest/inclination. Smart, quiet kids tend to be seen as older than they really are sometimes, and I think it's easy for adults, especially adults under a lot of stress, to lean on them more heavily than is appropriate.

Some things my parents or other adults said, with which I disagreed as a kid, I've come to agree with. Dress and grooming are pretty pointless in any functional sense, but they really do matter in your interactions with other people. Shared values and culture really do make a marriage easier, though when my mom told me that at 16, I thought she was being closed-minded. A messy room really is a dumb thing to live with all the time.

Other stuff, I kept my ideas about the same because the reasoning was the same. Once you get, say, the proof that there are an infinite number of primes, life experience doesn't contradict it. I think I became more accepting of subtleties and gray areas as I grew up--places where a beautiful model is a poor fit for reality are less obvious when you don't have 40 years of life experience to compare your model against. More, I think life experience gives you a lot of examples in memory where your well-thought-out theory absolutely collapsed under an onslaught of inconvenient facts.

I am fond of the style made from a flatheaded scredriver blank.

I've gone through five or six in the past twenty years (mostly becuase I prefer to have some sort of rubber dip on them, to reduce slippage, though I've worn a couple down to where the horse thought they were too narrow.

No, there isn't a foldable pick which is as stout.

Victorinox makes a decent riding knife, with hoof-pick, and locking blade. I think of getting something like that, not because it's what I really want, but because I'm more likely to keep it handy, and no not have to improvise with other tools on the multi-tool.

Andrew T: I forgot to mention he most important reason I recommended the fixed bladed knife. If you have slippery hands, the odds of losing your grip while opening it goes down.

For all that there are lots of good knives out there, online, I'd go to a shop, or two, and handle them. How it feels in the hand is important. If it doesn't fit well, it's not as useful.

Once you get to a point you can leave, remember you don't have to bother the perfessor, just click those ruby slippers together!

FWIW, it renders fine for me, even with UTF8 encoding forced.

I think Trebuchet may be one that comes with WinXP. (I've got it at work, and it's an XP machine, to which I've added no fonts. Therefore ....)

I've read several of Spider Robinson's Callahan books, and I visited alt.callahans for a few days a long time ago. Maybe it was where I was at then, but the callahans conversation just didn't grab me the way ML does; maybe coming into that "3 Arab leaders walk into a bar" joke thread is the only sort of thing that could make me sit up and take notice.

The other thing is that Spider has disappointed me in the last few years. He started well, I thought. The notion of community he used originally was very much like what I said in my post upthread. But after awhile it started sounding like Callahan's was only a halfway house for damaged people; once you healed, you needed to move on. I don't see ML that way at all; this is a place to meet interesting, smart, caring people. Some have problems they're dealing with, some do not; some people get sympathy and perhaps some respite here. But we're not therapists or counselors; we don't know who has problems unless they tell us (and it's none of our business if they don't), and we can only help by listening and making suggestions about what direction to take.

The other thing about the Callahan stories these days is that our heroes are omniscient, omnipotent, and they like all the right brands. It's hard to care, and it's really hard to think of that setting as someplace I would fit in.

That's a quote from Connor, who as you'll recall jnf tvira n jubyr arj uvfgbel jura Natry gbbx bire Jbysenz & Uneg. Ur fnlf gung jura ur yrnirf orsber gur svany onggyr. That gave some of us hope for a spinoff series, but it was not to be.

Allan 357: Um. I'm ashamed to say I'm not placing you just at the moment. Unless you were the one who...popped up on the computer. THAT I remember. Was that you?

I find things do get easier as I get older, but just because I've had more practice. The second time someone close to me died was definitely easier than the first, because I'd done most of my philosophical wallowing* the first time around, for example.

The main thing that makes childhood different from adulthood, I think, is magical thinking. Children have a sense of cause and effect that has little to do with reality, and then the didactic adult way of explaining things gets layered on top of that, which makes the world a painful, guilt-inducing place. "Your great-aunt is sick, so we have to be really nice to her" can metamorphose through events to become "I wasn't nice enough to my great-aunt, so she died."

I imagine a lot of us made odd choices as children based on an incorrect idea of our power to affect the world. I know I was always trying to save people who couldn't be saved...certainly not by the self-sacrifice of a child. It took a long time to understand that I was motivated by something other than idiocy, because as an adult, I'd forgotten what it was like to believe in my own absolute power.

*why do people die, what is the meaning of life, is there an afterlife, etc etc

What a thoroughly delightful person she is. It was great to finally meet someone in person who I've known only via text before, of course, but she's fun and bright and witty into the bargain. Not that the rest of you aren't, of course.

More ML meetups. They're a good thing.

The various online incarnations of Callahan's Place have all suffered, to some extent, from not having the ability to put someone in the Fast Eddie role. I think the observation that Teresa (and Patrick, and sometimes Jim) having that role makes this a more pleasant community is spot-on.

I spent considerable time in a.c. myself; during the years immediately after my divorce, it gave me something to stabilize my life around, and I met my current partner there. But, as the motto in the books says, it was a place I found when I needed it, and left when I no longer did.

More ML meetups. They're a good thing.

funny you should mention, cause

all fluorospheroids in new york area! d'you want to hang out in a couple of weeks?

i will be in town from the 21st to the 26th, & selling my comical books at mocca art fest saturday & sunday.

i may not be the most well-known around these parts, but i'm told i'm pleasant in person! there's an email address linked from the website linked from my name, & another equally good email address viewable with the "see all by" trick.

In my head, there are three types of people on ML.

1. The giants who bestride the landscape. PNH, TNH, Jim, Avram, Xopher*, a few others as well


2. People whom I remember - not just names but facts and characteristics - from thread to thread. For instance, I once startled Serge by recalling that his wife writes romance novels, which he had mentioned a couple of months earlier and on another thread**. Note that some of the people in this class have landed there by behaving like a'holes; there is more than one way to be memorable‡.


3. People still classed as non-notable in abipedia. That doesn't mean they're really non-notable at all, just that abipedia is not a very general encyclopedia††. It also means they have the chance to reinvent themselves with each comment.

Anyway, having now defined my terms, I can say that you're in category two for me (not that I'm in New York). I suspect you are for many others here.
-----
* to prove that it's not just admins, and well, because it's Xopher
** and because they're romance novels, the wench is not dead†.
† I appear to be Baroque and discursive today. Hm.
‡ I always used to say that nothing is as memorable as a good affectation, back when I used one in my online persona.
†† Maybe I need more editors. Then I can have edit wars in my head! Wait. That's why I left therapy.

Which could be any of us.

For all you know.

(Also, I like the wikipedia model of human consciousness, and will have to give it some serious thought.)

-----
* thus begins my stealth attempt to take credit for that fantastic posting in the Catz thread†.
† because having my name on the top of the thread didn't work.

Heh, that rings a bell. In many ways my life can be divided into the "Adhering to Arbitrary Social Norms is Illogical" and the "Yeah, But Little Effort, Big Payoff" epochs, with very little continuity between the two. Figuring out that it might be worthwhile to pay some attention to social norms (even if they don't make any sense) was a pretty major revelation in my life.

Mary Dell @ 392: "I imagine a lot of us made odd choices as children based on an incorrect idea of our power to affect the world. I know I was always trying to save people who couldn't be saved...certainly not by the self-sacrifice of a child."

I get weird (in a good way) resonances of Pan's Labyrinth and the His Dark Materials trilogy from that. I think a non-neglible fraction of sf/f deals with that theme, though I don't think that there's much of a consensus.

What's the matter? Don't have a mouth?

I agree about the Callahan's stories--he's kind of run out of ideas. The last couple books were pretty lame. The super-intelligent psychic daughter thing wears thin in about five minutes, and the idea that one small-time gangster could frighten a group that had faced down extraterrestrial invasions was silly. (Steve Barnes made a comment one time about how you had to match the difficulty to the characters--his example was that it wouldn't be interesting to watch James Bond foil a 7-11 holdup. This problem killed _Callahan's Con_ for me.)

On the other hand, I thought _The Free Lunch_ was quite good. There were implausibilities, but they somehow didn't ruin the story for me.

Temple Grandin (as far as I can tell, an autistic genius--she's a world-famous expert on animal behavior who also has a book explaining how she translates her picture-based thought processes to words) calls these "sins of the system." She commented in one of her books that her life became much easier when she understood that there were arbitrary rules, and that if she committed to following them all the time, people would cut her a lot of slack on other things.

I have a dreadful memory for names, and have often commented that the only way I'll remember your name the first time I meet you is if you do something really impressive. Unfortunately, it's pretty rare that "impressive" and "good" go together...

FWIW, it renders fine for me, even with UTF8 encoding forced.

The front page renders fine for me as well; it's the subpages where the problems appear.

Just renewed again. How else can I find out what's going to be happening in the future?

We had NASFiC in Austin--I volunteered for that, and got written up in the San Angelo, TX paper.

And I my have one of the generics on my shelf at home, Melissa. I'll check!

I can see that life has come full circle.

I was a very old-acting first-born with many self-imposed rules and regulations. I tried very hard to follow the rules, and at an awkward early teenage time, decided that instead of rebelling against my parents, I'd rebel against my peers, and became very mormon, very intellectual (or so I imagined) and very gothy vegetarian (It was 1986 in the midwestern burbs - gothy vegetarian was still rebellion then!). The best way to get me to break down in tears was for an authority figure to say s/he was "disappointed" in me.

At nearly 35, I've been OK with legal limitations, but when it comes to things like "cake is not a breakfast food", or "if you don't buy these books/clothes/sheet music now, you can save for a good cello" or "if you hew to this schedule you created yourself, you can see at least three things in London you wanted to see", a part of my brain pipes up with "You can't tell me what to do! You're not the boss of me!!!". Despite the fact that all of the above are in my best interests.

It's quite self-sabotaging (specifically putting off long-term goals for instant gratification) that I suppose I ought to see a shrink about it. But while I am a huge proponent of the powers of therapy (which have done wonders for friends and family) I had a really rotten experience in my teens with a therapist, and I can't bring myself to go through the process of finding one who isn't a total quack.

That line always makes me smile.

Despite the fact that all of the above are in my best interests.

Ah, yes. Welcome to the human race. ;) You've at least become aware of the issue, which is probably half the battle, and puts you ahead of a lot of people.

I can't bring myself to go through the process of finding one who isn't a total quack.

The fact that you're already aware of your behaviour has me wondering if you need therapy. You sound perfectly human to me. If there is something about the behaviour that is measurably impacting you in a specific negative way, then that's a different thing. But if it's just the voice, then therapy or even coaching might be overkill. If you're interested, I could talk you through how coaching would deal with the voice and its impact, but it wouldn't make the voice go away, it would be showing you some tools you can use to help neutralize it when it shows up.

Yes, TexAnne's a great person to hell around WFC with, too. She even gave me two story ideas for free.

Started a new software job where I got to use Apollos, with mice and everything. My first workstation was the size of a small washing machine, with a monster tube that required its own stand. We were churning out vast amounts of Pascal.

Sometime that year, we bought a Mac Plus to replace the Kaypro. It didn't come with a hard drive, so we ended up spending what must have been a week's pay for somebody to get an external drive, all 10 megs.

That was the year I sang chorus in my first operas, instead of driving up to SF to just watch.

I was reading Locus, but didn't subscribe until roughly five years ago--buying it OTC always gave me an excuse (as if I needed one) to hit a specialty bookstore. (In 1985, it was Future Fantasy (RIP), which was in vague walking distance, although I always drove because I knew I'd have too many books to carry on the way back.)

We'd discovered Chez Panisse the previous summer, and then went mad ordering from Shepherd Seeds. I think 1985 was the year our back garden produced the zucchini plague (we unloaded a bunch on the little old lady from Trieste next door), and we had pasta w/ fresh tomatos at least twice a week. I made some truly amazing bread-and-butter pickles from the cucumbers.

Without knowing it, I was watching Vikram Seth writing _The Golden Gate_ at a back table in Printer's Ink bookstore (also RIP).

Fourth of Julys were always spent at the Stanford Amphitheatre, where the Preservation Hall Jazz Band had a standing gig. Show-offy picnics were the rule, and some people waved balloons in time w/ the music.

No particular angst, and the future was starting to look bright enough that I was thinking of investing in a cheap pair of sunglasses. I wish I still had all that much energy.

Can't be worse than putting off instant gratification for no goals at all. I keep not getting things because I need to save the money for ... what?

the year our back garden produced the zucchini plague

Early one summer I was fertilizing some of the plants in our backyard, and made a horrible mistake from not paying attention to what I was doing. I fertilized the zucchini! Within a few weeks all of our recipes for zucchini were exhausted and we were reduced to putting zucchini in baskets and leaving them on neighborhood doorsteps with notes saying "Please take care of my baby."

When our kids were in high school we got a new dog, a Border Collie puppy. True to breed, he almost immediately started herding everything in sight, including the kids. They started telling the dog (and everyone else) "You're not the Border Collie of me!"

Apparently "preventative," which I find distasteful, is a legitimate word.

Is its meaning different in any way from "preventive?"

Please enlighten me.

(I also prefer "orient" to "orientate.")

Will "preventitative" be the next fad?

About the only thing 1985 had going for it was it was the year "Back to the Future" came out.

There's a " find a therapist" search at Psychology Today. Between the descriptions they give of themselves, and that they list if they do free phone consultations, you'll be much better able to interview them and see if they set off your flake-o-meter before you start.

I'd suggest finding one with "Therapist Orientation" (link to definitions) = Cognitive Behavioral (CBT). They're somewhat harder to get appointments with, due to recent articles on the effectiveness of CBT, but then CBT is effective. And efficient.

That's for dealing with negatives. Quite separate from that is building up positives: two years ago I had a life coach*, and that was quite useful in replacing a couple of weakly good habits with better ones.

Also- your comment reminds me of my two favorite "pop-psychology but sharp and effective" books of the past 20 years:

1. The Resilience Factor by Shatte & Reivich**.

2. Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman. (Link to his site-- it has a bundle of interesting tests, articles, and etc.-- but I'd also get the book.)

Both books are useful, habit changing, and dense with good ideas- i.e. not the sort of books that spend 200 pages on a 20 page concept.

The Resilience Factor especially could be helpful with stopping self-sabotage.

-------------
* "Life coaching is a new type of therapy that helps healthy people to realize their goals in work, family and life. Although many psychologists also consider part of their treatment to be a form of life coaching, this therapy doesn't focus on treating mental illness. Executive coaches, for example, may be enlisted to help a chief executive become a better manager." (psych today)

** "Their premise--that your thinking style determines your resilience--underlies the books promise: you can boost resilience by changing the way you think about adversity."

The beautiful house we were going to hire in the Netherlands just fell through. The painter isn't going to the Canary Islands.

Suddenly feeling deeply, deeply low. All of our plans are in tatters, the timing is fsked, and I'm not sure how we're going to make anything work.

*headdesk*

May I meet that gambit with "hesitancy" which doesn't quite mean either hesitant, or hesitation, or to hesitate but some other, even more tenuous condition lingering indeterminately on the plane of meaning defined by those three points?

There's nothing wrong with "preventive", and if Google's to be believed, it's over 2½ times as common on the web as "preventative". On the other hand, there's not much of a rational case to be made against the latter. It's not a recent innovation — the OED's earliest citation for "preventative"[1] is from 1655, just 29 years after the first for "preventive"[2] — and there are other "-ative" adjectives similarly formed from stems not ending in "-ate", unless you prefer "qualitive", "authoritive", and "talkive".

1. 1655 LD. ORRERY Parthenissa IV. II. viii. 74 All preventative thoughts of hostility were silenc'd.
2. a1626 BACON Considerations Warre with Spain (1629) 2 Warres preuentiue vpon just feares, are true defensiues, as well as vpon actuall inuasions.

I wouldn't call it "therapy". The difference being, as it says, that it's geared towards healthy people, who are for some non-mental-illness reason, stuck. But otherwise, it's a pretty accurate description.

Lee@427: You do stuff to help people deal with the Goddamn Tapes?

That's definitely a big part of what I work with.

YMMV, etc...

(I also prefer "orient" to "orientate.")

I can speak to this part of your post, because someone made me wince by saying "orientate" when they meant "orient" so I looked it up. "Orientate" means to turn toward the Orient, a.k.a. the Far East. So if you're oriented toward the Orient you are Orientated.

Presumably this means that "occidentate" should also be a word.

Presumably this means that "occidentate" should also be a word.

Yes, it means your teeth face west.

"No, you idiot— that wrench already had its utility for tightening bolts before you even picked it up. If you insist on abusing that word any further, then I'll be tempted to utilize this chair leg as a blunt instrument to club the proper meaning of the word into you. Lucky for you, I'm plagued with a natual hesitancy to escalate matters of word choice into violence."

Some of the US usage differences, 'momentarily' for example, still seem like a bump in the sentence to me, but are not really a true peeve.

Seriously, I always picture people rolling their eyes and scrolling down past my posts.

____ 428: I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you find something soon. Do not despair.

Mary 436: I used to say "Boreate" when I meant "face north." No, this wasn't correct. But it was fun. Btw, 'orient' really does originally mean "face east"; medieval maps had east at the top, and lining up the map with the world involved facing east.

My occident has been Gored. True, but inconvenient.

Neato! Didn't know that.

I, myself, have recently become orientated, by the way, since I'm planning to go to China within (hopefully!) three years or so. But I suppose for most people, orientatation is something they're born with...

oh, FWIW, I always enjoy your posts. You have a strong POV, which you present consistently, but without being a f&ck-stick about it. This is also true of many other ML regulars, which is part of what makes this such a cool place to hang out.

how is it?

I'm enjoying it quite a bit, even with my occasional difficulty recognizing people (which isn't necessarily a sign of a problem with the art -- I have trouble recognizing people in movies and TV shows too). I don't understand gur fvtavsvpnapr bs "KKK" naq gur ahzore 30 ba gur qbbe gb gur qbbe Rguna jnf in the latest issue, though. Anyone?

Er, hrm. That's unfortunate rot13-ing -- hope this doesn't attract the wrong attention.

Greg London, #425, if you like Back to the Future, you'll like Two Lumps today.

abi, #428, I'm so sorry! I hope something comes up soon.

Sometimes I recognize the name and sometimes I don't. When I don't, I point out that (as a sysadmin) if I know someone's name it's for one of two reasons:

1. They've done something really memorable like reimplementing a chunk of the sequencing pipeline to take advantage of our new batch queueing system only a few days after we announced it was in production.

2. They've done something really memorable like submitting 40,000 jobs to said batch queueing system without either (a) testing the code or (b) using the flag that says "don't email me a job completion message". (One mail server. Hundreds of compute nodes, rapidly generating "job exited with status 1" emails. You do the math. Instant self-DoS attack.)

So if I recognize your name, that can be a very good sign, or it can be a very bad sign. If I don't know who you are, you can't have done anything too incredibly stupid, or at least you did it in the lab and not where I'd hear about it.

Oooh. The artist can sure draw one mean cat.
Literally, mean.

;)

;-)

Another small world phenomenon: Hi, Miriam! We met at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco. I'm a curator at MoCCA, and I'll be selling my comics at the festival, too. I'll be sure to track you down during the weekend.

I'm very sorry to read that. Wish that there was something useful to say.

From my own experience, one thing I learned is that floods-of-stress aren't necessary to grief. If you find you're getting too much adrenalin (fight or flight response) or too little sleep there's nothing wrong with a short course of modern meds to help*.

-----------
* For me, driving while crying was tough: driving and crying while sleep deprived would have just been dangerous. I made sure I got my sleep.

I wonder how many fannish folk would score noticeably outside the norm on a test of autistic/Asperger's-ish tendencies?

hi! i finally got around to reading young bottoms in love this past weekend, & it is aces. in fact, it got rather passed around (my little sister & her fella were up for shabbat) & many laughs were shared.

see you soon!

(takes eyes out of sockets.)

(rolls them like dice towards xopher)

(picks them up, dusts them off, and puts them back in sockets)

Yeah? What of it?

So much for "...you can continue to visit SCI FICTION's archive of critically acclaimed and award-winning tales...10 major awards, including three Hugo Awards, four Nebula Awards and a World Fantasy Award."

Judging by past experience, I will probably have a meltdown of epic proportions after it's all over. Right now we're sort of in Francisco Franco mode, for those old enough to remember Saturday Night Live that far back.

Here's a free, open source program that makes whole copies of sites. Works pretty well, though some others work slightly better.
http://www.httrack.com/
You don't even need to install anything if you don't want, you can just download the program itself. (The "no install" version.)

You just point it at the address you want to save, and it follows all of the links and makes a copy of everything. There are settings you can mess with that control how deeply it digs, and how far it drifts, but you can probably skip that for this project.
(Tip: don't point it at google, unless you want a copy of the internet.)

Confirmed on the Department of Justice site.

Oooh, neat! There's a site I want a copy of .... (Actually, there's two of them. Many pages, none of them particularly large in size. Just ... many pages.)

Why am I always surprised when these people demonstrate their insatiability for more monopolist powers? I know I shouldn't be, but here I am, shocked. And disgusted.

http://web.archive.org/*/www.scifi.com/scifiction/

Right now I'm focusing on the translation thesis so that I can work through until the end of the summer, at least. I need to defend in August...

No, no, down with the patriarchy!

I wonder how many fannish folk would score noticeably outside the norm on a test of autistic/Asperger's-ish tendencies?

A lot of us, I suspect. I had very much the same reaction when I first heard Temple Grandin speak. I'm neither autistic nor do I have Ausperger's Syndrome*, but the kinds of experiencex she described, such as reactions to touch and texture and the effects of sounds, were very familiar. Fore example, I have never been able to eat an unskinned peach, because the feeling of the fuzz on my skin is excruciatingly uncomfortable. Similar though not as severe a reaction to polystyrene foam, but only if it has large air cells. I conjecture it has something to do with the spatial frequency of the texture, but that's just a SWAG.

Aside from that shock of recognition, I greatly admire Ms. Grandin's success in building her life in what must be a terribly alien world to her.

* I do have ADD, not a mild case, but well under control these days between medication (not stimulants incidentally, but SSRIs) and therapy, and have since I was about 12 or 13, I think.

But, short of Ken Kesey's "Abdul and Ebenezer" she's one of the few people who writes about cattle in a way which is recognizable after my experience of living with them. (The All Creatures Great and Small animals are all too stupid and mechanical; the medical filter, I suppose).

Well, if Gore is right, maybe we'd better all get tickets for that ride. The water's getting a little high already.

"The medical filter" - Yep. You've got to remember that doctors are taught to see humans as stupid and mechanical too. If you can stomach it, watch "House" for one episode; his attitude towards his patients is an underlying subtext for most doctors.

Yeah, working for a med school made me respect doctors, sure it did.

* Treatment for ADD is highly idiosyncratic. Stimulants like ritalin and amphetamine work well for some people and not at all for others. I'm using an anti-depressant which is usually effective for less than a year and that for only 40% of patients, and is used as a starter, with stimulants to follow. In my case, the anti-depressant is still going strong after 2 years, and I haven't needed anything else. Brain chemistry is wonderously complex and varied.

Re: the rot13'd Season 8 discussion, I would just like to say that V pna'g oryvrir Rguna'f qrnq, naq qrfcrengryl jnag uvz abg gb or (naq abg whfg orpnhfr jr funer n anzr), ohg vg ybbxrq gb zr yvxr vg jnf cerggl qrsvavgvir. Nal gubhtugf?

This, even though we've already done the "See, if you take me off methylphenidate my blood pressure goes up" experiment and the consult with my shrink about why sending me to the fire department to get my blood pressure checked doesn't yield good data. Just another rock to push up the hill.

The fire department? This sounds remarkably peculiar.

#461 Mary Dell: maybe by osmosis, by being around Giles & his old books so much?

#481 Ethan: I'll have to read it again before having any useful comment, but Mary makes a good point in #485.

Ah. We need blood pressure around here, we go to large groceries w/ pharmacy depts. They may not be totally accurate, but you'll get a ballpark figure.

You pitch 'em, I'll swing.