ooo, I get to be the first poster on Abi's first thread!

Posted December 5, 2007 5:58 PM by Mary Dell

Congratulations on making the front page, Abi!

For me, the iconic reading of ninety-six, is the Third World Band's 'Ninety-six degrees in the shade (real hot)'.

Posted December 5, 2007 5:58 PM by Fragano Ledgister

First post for abi's first post!

Posted December 5, 2007 5:59 PM by John A Arkansawyer

Cursors. Foiled again. You damn kids.

Posted December 5, 2007 6:00 PM by adamsj

Congratulations, Abi!

Posted December 5, 2007 6:01 PM by Alberto

96 is the low end of normal pre-ovulatory basal body temperature.

Posted December 5, 2007 6:03 PM by Mary Dell

a little touch of horror in the night
it passes and the sunlight remains weak
the past's not pleasant and the future's bleak

we wait for monsters at the edge of sight
we wait since only fools would go to seek
a little touch of horror in the night

nothing will ever sapience requite
the largest bird has blood upon its beak
and no one intervenes to save the meek
a little touch of horror in the night

Posted December 5, 2007 6:03 PM by Fragano Ledgister

No love for "96 Tears"?

Posted December 5, 2007 6:07 PM by Tim Walters

Bill Rodgers, 96, became Scotland's oldest bridegroom when he married long-term girlfriend Liz, 72, Perth last weekend.

Posted December 5, 2007 6:11 PM by Dave Hutchinson

I meant `near Perth.' Sorry.

Posted December 5, 2007 6:12 PM by Dave Hutchinson

Yay, abi!

[Or are we supposed to make sure there's some content in these messages? If so - how about Ninety Six?]

Posted December 5, 2007 6:17 PM by candle

There's the 'Ninety-Six' district in one of the Carolinas (South, I think).

Posted December 5, 2007 6:22 PM by P J Evans

Welcome, Abi Sutherland, to the Making Light control room. (Directly beneath the massive Dirigible Mooring Tower atop the Flatiron Building in New York.)

Posted December 5, 2007 6:23 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Yeah, they let me into the special room where all the secrets are kept. It's intricate and peculiar, and all the chairs are very comfortable.

Did you know Teresa has the microfiche backup of the Library of Alexandria in there? If you peer closely you can see the grain of the papyrus, pared so thin it's translucent, on which tiny slaves copied all the texts. I could spend a year or two poring over the archives. More, unless my Greek improves.

And the DISEMVOWELLER. My god. It's just so...um. Words fail me. Just, um.

I won't describe the first aid kit in the corner. I'm a little afraid of it, despite the extremely detailed instructions posted inside the lid. Or maybe because of them. I didn't know bodies did that.

Posted December 5, 2007 6:30 PM by abi

Wikipedia says the Book of Revelation was supposed to have been written in the year 96.

Well, "96 Tears" was taken. You go with what you got. Congrats on the post, Abi. I was in danger of being within ten thousand comments of catching up.

I hope I can post first in Open Thread 98.6. I got a good one.

Posted December 5, 2007 6:34 PM by Kip W

Jeff Duntemann is looking for fanfiction and fan art to continue the didactic tales of soldering and antenna-mounting in the Carl and Jerry series.

Posted December 5, 2007 6:35 PM by Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey

Could this be the 96 you refer to? Just another nice drive in the country.

Posted December 5, 2007 6:39 PM by Nathan

I like 96 because that's the year (if you add 1900) Bill Clinton became President again, and this without cheating or starting a war.

Posted December 5, 2007 6:40 PM by Serge

'96 was the year I met my wife. We have our tenth anniversary in May.

's a good number.

Posted December 5, 2007 6:43 PM by Dan Layman-Kennedy

Congratulations Abi! Be careful around the disemvoweller, or you might to use the first aid kit.

I offer up M96.

Posted December 5, 2007 6:45 PM by Tania

Number 96 was a groundbreaking soap in Australia in the 1970s -- naked bottoms seemed to be the main thrilling innovation.

Posted December 5, 2007 6:47 PM by Jonathan Shaw

arrgh. And I even looked in the preview. Abi might need to use the first aid kit.

Serge, the package arrived today. Thanks! I'll be checking it out this weekend.

Posted December 5, 2007 6:47 PM by Tania

#8: I hate that song. It creeps me out.

And now it's stuck in my head. Curse you! *shakes tiny fist*

Posted December 5, 2007 6:48 PM by Manon

re: the Richter Scales' "Here Comes Another Bubble" Particle, I'd like to recommend their "You've Got Mail" and "Stockholm Syndrome", available on their website.

Posted December 5, 2007 6:48 PM by Zed

Tania @ 22... Glad to hear it. I hope you enjoy the videotape of The Hard Nut as much as we have. We'll be seeing the whole thing live on Dec 20, when Sue and I drive to the Bay Area. Yay!

Posted December 5, 2007 6:54 PM by Serge

Rene Descartes was born on March 31, 1596 in Touraine, France. When he visited Pascal in 1647, he said "the only way to do good work in mathematics ...is to never allow anyone to make me get up in the morning before I feel inclined to do so"

Yay 1596

Posted December 5, 2007 6:59 PM by Nathan

Congrats, abi!

That description of the highway feels like the introduction to a text adventure game. Maybe it's the second-person narrative style. Maybe it's because of its resemblance to the introduction of the first adventure game. (Maybe it's because I should be working on mine for class tomorrow instead of reading Making Light, sigh.)

Posted December 5, 2007 7:00 PM by Kevin Riggle

Manon @ 23: And now it's stuck in my head. Curse you!

*pumps fist and bellows "SONGMASTER" in deepest voice*

You're right, though--it is creepy.

Fortunately, I'm still in denial about "Walk Away, Renee."

Posted December 5, 2007 7:08 PM by Tim Walters

Abi @ 14... And the DISEMVOWELLER. My god. It's just so...um. Words fail me. Just, um.

I always thought it looked like something from Girl Genius, but crazier.

Posted December 5, 2007 7:09 PM by Serge

... And here's another M96

(One should always have a test motorway)

Posted December 5, 2007 7:12 PM by John Hawkes-Reed

Congratulations and fruitcake, Abi.

Did you know Teresa has the microfiche backup of the Library of Alexandria in there?

Posted December 5, 2007 7:30 PM by Claude Muncey

Tim @ #28, Ah, but which version of Walk Away Renée? The Left Banke's or the one by Linda Ronstadt/Ann Savoy on their album Adieu False Heart?

Posted December 5, 2007 7:34 PM by Linkmeister

In an episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati," gonzo-disk jockey Johnny Fever remarks:

"Ninety six? How do you do that?"

Context? I don't remember. But you don't forget a line like that.

Posted December 5, 2007 7:36 PM by Stefan Jones

Hi there, Abi!

And, um, happy holidays, yarn people. I've told myself I should do this for a few months now.

Three or so years ago, I went to Peru for a Spanish class. Disappointing class (partly my own fault) but we did spend time in, you know, Peru. Where alpacas are kind of common, and edible as well. I got the bright idea that for Christmas, I'd get some alpaca yarn, which had to be cheaper, and make Mom a scarf.
So I went to market, asked around, failed to be market-savvy and intelligent, desired strongly not to haggle (almost every time a shopkeeper approached me to ask what I was looking for, I wanted to run away and hide), found out that either what I was buying or what I had bought the day before may contain synthetics, and ended up with a cone of pretty fuzzy grey three-ply alpaca yarn.

I cannot work with it to save my life.

So. Yarn people. I have yarn. I'm probably never going to use it because I can't figure out *how*. This yarn deserves to be made into something interesting. I don't know exactly what went into it, besides, presumably, alpaca. I don't know what's in the four or so balls I bought at an earlier market (never tried working with them because there wasn't enough for a scarf). I don't know how to treat it, how it has been treated, anything.

And I sort of figure knitters and crocheters here might. So, um. Email me, username at gmail, if you can give some yarn a home.

(oh god I'm opening floodgates aren't I this is going to end badly with people offended what if it's not even alpaca I have no more idea what I'm doing now than when I bought it)

Posted December 5, 2007 7:40 PM by Diatryma

I think that 96 in bed is just as intimate. It means that two people have been together for a long time and they don't need to see each other. Just touching is enough, provided you don't have 3 dogs sharing the bed with you.

Posted December 5, 2007 7:44 PM by Serge

Linkmeister @ 32: Never heard (or heard of) the Ronstadt/Savoy (although I'd certainly be interested to), but I do know that I prefer the Left Banke's version to the Four Tops'. The latter is good, of course, but doesn't quite capture the perfect melancholy of the original.

Posted December 5, 2007 7:47 PM by Tim Walters

Tim, if you want melancholy, listen to the Ronstadt/Savoy version. It's even slower, and the two voices meld amazingly well. I'm reasonably sure it's on iTunes, but if not Amazon has it. There used to be a video clip at Amazon of the two of them singing it live on Bill Maher's show, but that was a promo while the album was new (six or seven months ago).

Note: I am a hard-core Ronstadt fan with about 16 of her albums in my possession, so I may not be entirely unbiased.

Posted December 5, 2007 7:54 PM by Linkmeister

Stefan Jones @33
You can find every script for WKRP at the link if you want to find the episode.

Posted December 5, 2007 8:02 PM by Nathan

'96 was My Year in New York City - not exactly my favorite year, but one rich in stories and characters and, ahem, *growth experiences.*

Funny you should mention Dillon Bustin. He got his start in folk music and folklore studies here in Bloomington, IN and I was vaguely acquainted with him way back when. Bought his one album, The Dillon Bustin Almanac. The song you quote was on it. Also a beautiful a cappella madrigal about gardening, a swinging little piece about the delights of good wood in a good wood stove, and other songs about real people and real things.

Dillon's great gift to Bloomington was his discovery and promotion of the home-grown working-man musician, Lotus Dickey, who composed his own songs, a vast library of complex ditties full of wordplay, affection, reverence and ragtime rhythms. After Lotus' death, a folk music festival grew into a vibrant world music festival bearing his name: Lotus.

Thank you, Dillon Bustin, for writing good songs and finding good songs.

Posted December 5, 2007 8:09 PM by cherish

Hurray for Abi!

(I'm still not really back. Maybe after finals.)

Posted December 5, 2007 8:11 PM by TexAnne

An American/Scottish/Nederlandsche cheer for abi!

And my brother lives in (or outside of) Happy Camp, CA (dredging the river for gold in the summer). Has to drive for a bit to get a cell signal so he can call us.

Posted December 5, 2007 8:29 PM by John Houghton

I threw a party in 1996. On a Tuesday night, I believe. February 29, 1996. A Leap Day party, because it was the last leap day of the 20th century. Or of the 1900s, depending where you draw those centurial/millennial lines. Someone said, "But it's a Tuesday night. Can't you move the party to the weekend?" Alas, no. It's on leap day or not at all.

Posted December 5, 2007 8:31 PM by Susan Kitchens

Stefan Jones (33):

"Ninety six? How do you do that?"

It requires another couple.

Posted December 5, 2007 8:32 PM by John Houghton

TexAnne @ 40... Yeah, about time you came back. I was beginning to think that fear of my bad jokes was keeping you away.

Posted December 5, 2007 8:36 PM by Serge

whoot! abi.

In response to the poem.

Old apple cart

I took it while I was at Ft. Lewis. I want to say it was Nov. 2003, but it might have been October. There was a huge pumpkin field on the other side of the road.

I need to rescan it, as that one doesn't truly capture the numinous quality of the original.

Posted December 5, 2007 8:36 PM by Terry (in Germany)

The version of 'Walk away, Renee' that Billy Bragg created drives me nuts. That may have been his intention.

Posted December 5, 2007 8:39 PM by Mez

Congratulations on being abi, FPP!

Serge 35: Just touching is enough, provided you don't have 3 dogs sharing the bed with you.

Especially at night. Because Jeremiah was a bullfrog.

Posted December 5, 2007 8:46 PM by Xopher

Xopher @ 47... Huh?

Posted December 5, 2007 8:50 PM by Serge

I got it, Xopher. The wonders of googling. Yeah, every night is a Three Dog Night around here.

Posted December 5, 2007 8:55 PM by Serge

Ahh, thank you Abi.

Had another soul-sucking day at work and your short, pretty piece of prose made me a little weepy.

Blessings full of warmth, sunlight and flowers flowing your way. it made me feel better. Thank you.

Posted December 5, 2007 9:08 PM by Paula Helm Murray

Xopher: Because Jeremiah was a bullfrog.

...until the three dogs et him in the night. Now he is an ex-bullfrog.

(It was a curious incident.)

Posted December 5, 2007 9:10 PM by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

69 is a Tai Chi disk, the yin and the yang chasing each other eternally around the central point counterclockwise, or widdershins as you will; so a mote it be, locked in place even as it moves.

96 is a bit of Celtic knotwork, the line swirling up, circling left and down and right, then ducking under the paper a moment, to come up circling right and down and left, then continue swirling up and away; we catch but this moment of its Gypsy-free wanderings.

Posted December 5, 2007 9:17 PM by Pyre

Coming in late with worst flooding since 1996.

Posted December 5, 2007 9:17 PM by JESR

Has anyone else noticed the URL of this thread?

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009690.html

Posted December 5, 2007 9:24 PM by Pyre

John Houghton @43
Stefan Jones (33):

"Ninety six? How do you do that?"

It requires another couple.

Actually, I believe it requires just a smidge less than 40% of another couple. Maybe our host with the medical experience can tell us how you accomplish that. I have no idea.

Posted December 5, 2007 9:26 PM by Nathan

Pyre @54: Open thread 94 got similar treatment.

Posted December 5, 2007 9:29 PM by Todd Larason

Speaking of roads, I find myself with an uncomfortable need to drive a car in the forseeable future. I'm capable of getting lost anywhere, but getting lost inside my own apartment is pretty low risk. I have a drivers license and a street-legal car, though I am too timid to make much use of them beyond proof of ID. (Having the car identifies me as an independent adult from Metro Detroit.) Thus far, I have managed to commute to work without a car by judicious choice of jobs and apartments, but my need to take a temporary job in an inconvenient place may defeat that strategy.

My mother, who loves me and worries that my sense of direction may be weak enough to be problematic, wants to buy me a GPS to put in the car. I want something I can use in the car to guide me between home and a contract job, and around traffic jams as needed. I also want to be able to take it out of the car, in case I need to not get lost on foot when I am walking 3 miles between new apartments, commuter rail stations, workplaces, etc. Can anyone recommend a device that would be good for both applications? I'm more interested in ease of use and reliability than in having a lot of features to play with.

Posted December 5, 2007 9:47 PM by Adrian

Nathan @ 55:

Actually, I believe it requires just a smidge less than 40% of another couple. Maybe our host with the medical experience can tell us how you accomplish that. I have no idea.

Posted December 5, 2007 9:54 PM by Pyre

So Pyre @ 55 (if you are who you say you are),

96 is not to be trusted?

P.S. It takes a warped mind to have come up with that. I like that.

Posted December 5, 2007 10:24 PM by Nathan

Nathan @ 59:

Well, at least it tells you why they're lying back to back staring outward.

No doubt trying to spot the hidden cameras...

Posted December 5, 2007 10:37 PM by Pyre

1996 was a memorable year for me. I turned 50. My father died.

X-rays were discovered in 1896. In 1796 the French Revolution was still happening. Catherine the Great died. In 1696 there was an undertakers' revolt in Amsterdam. Yes, really. No, I haven't a clue.

Posted December 5, 2007 10:44 PM by Lizzy L

I have absolutely nothing to add here except for another big happy w00t for abi. W00t, abi!

Posted December 5, 2007 10:52 PM by ethan

So, I just bought two copies of "My Book House" on Ebay. It's a 12-volume storybook set that we grew up with in my family. I have the family copy, and it's MINE, damnit! In order to stave off other claimants, I volunteered to help get copies of the thing for my brothers who have young children.

First copy, all 12 volumes, plus two extra "parent guide" type volumes: $66. Second copy, all 12 volumes, plus one of the extras: $155. The difference is that the seller on the second one mentioned "Sambo" in the listing.

No real point, I just thought it was interesting.

Posted December 5, 2007 10:53 PM by Mary Dell

JESR, that whole thing resurrects my feelings during our 1993 floods here in middle America. I've always lived on high ground, usually without a thought. In my current home we'd have to have a biblical flood to affect us seriously, we're over 100 feet above the Missouri River flood plain on the bluffs to the south of the river (we're not far up the hill and south from Crown Center, where the Heinlein event was held last summer)

i think it would be unbearable to live on an actual flood plain.

It may a subconscious urge, the house I grew up in was in a surburban neighborhood but in mid-slope of a creek drainage. Because of the way the developer had NOT dealt with the lay of the land, when it rained hard we had a river into our basement windows....Dad had to reshape the yard (he basically put a berm to keep the water running downhill but not toward our basement).

Plus Kitchen Impossible just did an event in Biloxi, which culminanted in the chef (Robert) presenting the keys to her refurbished home to one of the people who cooked for him. It seems cruel, at least Biloxi won't give a certificate of occupacy for a perfectly remodeled house unless you also have a minimum requirement of furniture (dining room, living room, bedroom set, who knows what else). Kitchen Impossible bought the furniture for her.

Posted December 5, 2007 11:20 PM by Paula Helm Murray

Congratulations, Abi. Awesome post!

96... hmmm. I think some of my relatives came to the U.S. in 1896.

Posted December 5, 2007 11:32 PM by Summer Storms

(And yes, I mean relatives, though I think I had ancestors that came then too. But IIRC, that is the year that my great-uncle arrived here.)

Posted December 5, 2007 11:34 PM by Summer Storms

Congratulations, Abi. None better.

Posted December 5, 2007 11:35 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Returning to politics for a moment: did anyone else hear the tapes of today's SCOTUS session? Topic was an attempt to get them to overrule an intermediate court's decision that everything is legal at Guantanamo, nobody has anything allowable to say about it, move along.... Summaries are always doubtworthy (and I swear I heard the announcer say "Scalito" at one point), but it sounds as if three of the justices were intent on proving their ignorance of any law or precedent that disagreed with their political convictions. One of the ali's even asked whether counsel for the appellant could point to \any/ case where a ]battlefield capture[ had had so many rights as had already been granted, and got a list right back.

Posted December 5, 2007 11:37 PM by CHip

#68: There's one thing I'm glad came up at today's session. The administration position seems to be that to give POWs these rights is unprecedented. But how come after all these years of insisting that they aren't POWs, the administration is now talking about them as if they were? Are they POWs or aren't they? The administration seems to change its position on this based on whichever will give them the result they want.

Posted December 5, 2007 11:43 PM by John Chu

Xopher, #47: Liar! ;-)

In 1996 I was turning 40. I'd been planning for some time to celebrate my 40th birthday by throwing BirthdayCon; I had a hotel picked out, and was going to invite everyone in my various circles of friends.* And then my life fell apart, and I couldn't afford to do it. I still rather mourn the lost opportunity.

* By the time you included everyone I knew from SF fandom, running Musicon, SCA, and contradancing, that would have been some 500 people scattered across 7 or 8 states. I was figuring I'd probably get a 1-or-2-in-10 attendance ratio.

Posted December 5, 2007 11:48 PM by Lee

Welcome, Abi!

Have they mentioned that, as least-senior poster, it's now your job to clean out the vowel bins on the Disemvoweler?

Posted December 5, 2007 11:54 PM by Avram

Gracious, abi, how very cool.

Diatryma, I feel as if I'm adversely affecting my karma by trying to talk a yarn person out of deaccessioning yarn they'd made up their mind to release, but I've found I can work really difficult yarns with the new baseball-bat-sized crochet hooks, and there're some neat patterns for large-hook knitting in the Interweave Crochet pattern books.

I imagine it'd felt beautifully.

Posted December 6, 2007 12:04 AM by julia

Thanks for the idea, Julia; I'll try a gigantor hook if no one wants it, but I'm not terribly good at that kind of weird proportion crocheting. Knitting seems to take to it a little better, but I cannot learn knitting from the internet.
It's not the worst yarn I've ever played with (Lion Brand Homespun) but it's also not something I want to wreck learning how to work with it.

Posted December 6, 2007 12:25 AM by Diatryma

ZOMG, abi is teh frontpagiest! Yay!

(I suppose we ought to thank Rachel for putting this idea into our hosts' heads? Or was that merely serendipitous?)

Tania @ 20: "Be careful around the disemvoweller, or you might to use the first aid kit."

I've heard stories...you know, rms and lgs lying everywhere, the walls spattered with bld... Be careful!

(I have this mental image of a patient lying in a hospital bed with little houses attached to their shoulders, and tree trunks coming out of their hips. Nearby, a doctor is saying, "We did the best we could! Reconstruction after disemvowelment is always a little hit and miss!")

Posted December 6, 2007 12:27 AM by Heresiarch

Domitian was assassinated in the year 96.

Chip @ 68: I get most of my SCOTUS coverage from NPR. I wouldn't be surprised to hear Nina Totenberg let "Scalito" slip. Once I heard her say "What do you mean we, white man?" while recounting the day's court activity.

Posted December 6, 2007 12:29 AM by Melissa (oddharmonic)

Avram @ 71: Have you been sending the vowels to Bosnia? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Posted December 6, 2007 12:34 AM by Tania

Tania, that's hilarious. I'm a regular listener to CarTalk, and I don't recall that at all. Guess I should check the website occasionally.

Posted December 6, 2007 12:55 AM by Linkmeister

Tania #76, I think Asus is using a fairly large bulk order. They started with EEE (Eee?), perhaps because it's the commonest in English and, I assume, cheapest, but they'll probably work through the others for different models.

Posted December 6, 2007 12:59 AM by Mez

abi! Congratulations!

Linkmeister, #37, when I decided to alphabetize my CDs, I was surprised to find out that I have as many Emmylou Harris CDs as I do Linda Ronstadt CDs. After that, it drops off sharply.

Diatryma, #73, I crochet with Lion Brand Homespun rather frequently -- why don't you like it?

Posted December 6, 2007 1:02 AM by Marilee

Marilee @ #79, then you probably have Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions, the album of duets with LR and EH. That's spectacular.

I didn't care a lot for either Trio album, mostly because there was too much Dolly Parton for my taste on each.

Posted December 6, 2007 1:21 AM by Linkmeister

Diatryma @ 73

Gotta go with Marilee here - I crocheted the kid a robe out of homespun with a really big hook, and it's a wonder of coziness. It made up pretty quickly, too.

Also, whatever the color is called that's navy, violet and teal is just gorgeous.

Posted December 6, 2007 1:54 AM by julia

puny /mp3disk/my-cds% find . -name data\.dump | cut -f 2 -d / | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head
75 Depeche Mode
36 Soundtracks
35 Various Artists
31 The Cure
23 Firesign Theatre
21 Lords of Acid
19 Bob Dylan
17 Violent Femmes
17 Leonard Cohen
17 Jeff Buckley

Posted December 6, 2007 1:56 AM by Todd Larason

Looking at all the reviews of the Kindle, it's becoming very apparent that Amazon are a mail-order company rather than a tech company. They're a company that makes money by applying tech to the paperwork problem of a mail order business.

The Kindle is a tech product. But they're not Apple.

I think it's also likely that the two halves of the business that the Kindle has to sell to--readers and publishers--are less tech savvy than we might like to think. I don't think books will suffer the same sort of tech-related market crash that music has, but the Kindle isn't something to exploit the possible markets; it's something to stop them being different.

Posted December 6, 2007 2:12 AM by Dave Bell

Alter and I have been watching old Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies with our 1.5-year-old.

(I will never say a bad word about political correctness again. But I digress.)

At last three or four times, a character has said "You are now in the hands of the dear old Maestro," or something similar. This is clearly a reference to something, but I have no idea what.

Google isn't talking.

Help?

Posted December 6, 2007 2:14 AM by Naomi Libicki

Mr. Google thinks it's probably a reference to big band leader Ben Bernie.

Posted December 6, 2007 2:22 AM by Earl Cooley III

Justice Scalito -- yes, that's right. Also Justices Stouter, Ginnedy, and Bremas. What's the matter, don't you recognize all these names?

Posted December 6, 2007 2:27 AM by Pyre

Not to leave out Chief Justice D. P. Roberts.

Posted December 6, 2007 2:29 AM by Pyre

Naomi #84: Google isn't talking.

...yet.

Posted December 6, 2007 2:48 AM by ethan

I love ML numerology. But am in terse mode, because Fu Xing is trying to nurse on my left hand. That is the orphaned kitten, who has made it to the naming stage. "Lucky Star."

Posted December 6, 2007 3:00 AM by A.J. Luxton

I'm already sick of the Christmas music that's being overplayed in the stores. Who's got some interesting recommendations for stuff that hasn't been done to death? A few of my personal favorites:

1) We Three Kings by the Roches. A nice mix of sacred and secular pieces in an amazing range of styles -- classical, jazz/rock, meditative, silly/fun.

2) Winter's Dance by Golden Bough. Seasonal songs with a pagan and Dickensian feel, some pretty instrumentals, and a guest appearance by Leif Sorbye of Tempest.

3) Christmas Renaissance by Richard Searles and Gilbert Yslas. All-instrumental, guitar and harpsichord, with other period instruments here and there. Searles also has an album called Winter Air which isn't quite as Christmasy, but feels seasonal.

Posted December 6, 2007 4:01 AM by Lee

'96 was the year that Katie (whom some of you have met) and I first got together as more than friends.

Posted December 6, 2007 4:21 AM by David Goldfarb

My cousin's daughter was born on Leap Day in 1996, and she's turning into one smart cookie. This summer we were at a theme park that had guess-your-age-or-weight booths, and she won a prize because she's "really" only two. And it was all her idea.

Posted December 6, 2007 4:51 AM by Debbie

Re: bubble,

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
        layoffs, starving hysterical in black teeshirts,
dragging themselves back to their parents' couches
        looking for the next tech job,
Java-headed hackers burning for the new electronic
        connection to the economic dynamo in the World-Wide Web...

(Think not that I mock. This was the fate of many real friends.)

Posted December 6, 2007 4:55 AM by A.J. Luxton

96 is my husband's lucky number, since he was six.... he always liked multiples of three & the way sixes & nines mirror each other, & around that time he started racing quarter-midget cars. his first choice for his car number was 69, but his parents said no (& wouldn't say why). 96 was "his" number ever since.

i think i was around here for when my lucky number, 64, came up as an open thread. but i don't remember it.

1996 was a pretty good year for me, or at least five weeks of it were so blazingly good that they outweigh anything else that may have happened. i went on an israel program, fell in love for the first time, & met two of my favourite artists while we were all teenagers.

Posted December 6, 2007 5:03 AM by miriam beetle

abi sutherland
posting her first open thread
but where be dragons?

Posted December 6, 2007 7:24 AM by albatross

Here are 96 Dragons.

Posted December 6, 2007 7:34 AM by Earl Cooley III

Avram @71:
Have they mentioned that, as least-senior poster, it's now your job to clean out the vowel bins on the Disemvoweler?

I can't get the vowel bin open. Jim said to ask you for the left-handed screwdriver...?

Posted December 6, 2007 7:41 AM by abi

Abi... There's no sonic screwdriver lying around?

Posted December 6, 2007 7:55 AM by Serge

Naomi Libicki @ 84... Mi>"You are now in the hands of the dear old Maestro"

Leopold Stokowski, maybe?
There was one cartoon where Bugs Bunny pretended being he.

Oh, and my wife gave ME a DVD set of those cartoons last Christmas. I have no idea why she thought that was an appropriate present for someone over 50. Really.

Posted December 6, 2007 7:59 AM by Serge

hey LibraryThing-ers, I didn't know this but LT has a deal to get free early review copies of a bunch of books. I don't have time to do reviews (I'm a medium-slow reader) but some of y'all will probably be interested.

Posted December 6, 2007 8:18 AM by Mary Dell

Serge #99: As I mentioned in my #85, I think the "Old Maestro" is Ben Bernie, who had a popular radio show during the time period of the cartoons involved. He's probably also the reason that some cartoon characters repeat his signature catchphrase "yowsa, yowsa, yowsa" [spellings vary]. See also cartoon character Ben Birdie.

Posted December 6, 2007 8:23 AM by Earl Cooley III

A week ago I saw a band called "69 Eyes". They were awful.

Posted December 6, 2007 8:24 AM by Tim Hall

Lee at 90, I thought my family was the only one that played the Roches Christmas CD. It's on heavy rotation with Canadian Brass, the Chipmunks, and one or two Tuba Christmases. The tubas are the best, because they're low and can be ignored fairly easily, but are still recognizable and fun.

I have a scarf of Homespun, made for me rather than by me, and I like it a lot. I think it's just that I'm pretty tense when I crochet and I never found a way to see the stitches using that yarn. I did a scarf in bright yellow eyelashy yarn-- the kind of yarn you get if you shave Big Bird and spin it-- and that was the same situation, but I was able to do the first couple rows by feel and after that, it was mostly sticking the hook in at appropriate intervals and adjusting when it stopped being rectangular. It is not the world's most precise scarf, but it came out okay.
My brother decided to learn to crochet a couple years ago. He didn't have money for a big gift for his girlfriend, so about a week before Christmas, Mom showed him chain and double crochet, then took him to buy yarn. Because he is a Krahe, he picked a dark boucle. Like me, he had trouble seeing the stitches; unlike me, he ran with it, figured out a way to mirror the tentacle on one side of the scarf, and his girlfriend liked it.

The alpaca is now claimed and is more likely to grow up to be something gorgeous.

Posted December 6, 2007 8:51 AM by Diatryma

Earl @ 101... Oops.

Posted December 6, 2007 9:07 AM by Serge

Serge @98:
There's no sonic screwdriver lying around?

I gave the sonic screwdriver away at Easter. Besides, it doesn't fit that last screw, the one next to the kneuter valve.

Posted December 6, 2007 9:08 AM by abi

Abi @ 108...

Lecturer: Okay, so what you want to do is this: You want to attack at the most vulnerable spot. Come at it from this angle and locate the automatic flip-flop override device here, which in turn will defuse the antigyroscopic preinterface thruster chamber, and the pneumatic centripetal antigravity shield deflectors, then you simply deactivate the axial gyro-presubinertia-photomegatronic oscillator that you see here.
Fluke Starbucker: Huh?
Lecturer: You pull the plug!

Posted December 6, 2007 9:22 AM by Serge

Rt. 96 is the road I'll be taking to my new home in a little under two months. Not the 96 in California, though.

Posted December 6, 2007 9:26 AM by TChem

A piece of depressing news. One of the guys here was scammed by PA. Not badly (he didn’t buy any of the “discount” runs, refused the “agent” and the like. But he did sign the seven year contract.

Worse, he then went and fell for “Rose bud”(?) to print a children’s book. They bilked him for $1,400, and aren’t returning his calls. I have no idea if the books are salable (the one is a “life in the army” novel, which I suspect suffers from being treated as a novel, instead of being cast as a memoir.

He tried, but after a couple of dozen rejection letters got snagged. On the upside, he knows he was scammed and isn’t too bitter. Downside, he bought a lot of the PA crap about the market being about whom one knows and new talent doesn’t have a chance.

He didn’t know how an agent works, and was surprised when I told him they don’t charge fees, but rather take a cut of royalties.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that his kid’s book has some merit, anyone have any idea of who he might pitch it too?

The worst of it, as expected, he’s a little put off the whole idea of trying to pitch the book anymore. Some of it is that he’s not really (so far as I can tell) willing to consider editing/reworking the book (he didn’t like what the one “editor” was telling him about how much he needed to use the word, “fuck” which, “I use like commas” not completely untrue to the subject, but not, perhaps the best sort of writing style), but more of it is that, having gotten rejected, and then fleeced, he’s just about given up.

One more reason to loathe PA.

Posted December 6, 2007 10:13 AM by Terry (still in Germany)

Highway 96 in Tennessee is road the bridge called the Natchez Trace Parkway Arches crosses over; it's the first segmentally constructed concrete arch bridge in the United States. The picture at the Wikipedia article is nice, but doesn't convey the full effect of being on 96 and looking up to see the bridge up ahead of you. Another picture of the bridge by the same photographer.

I was just about to post this, when the wonders of flickr found a full-on picture of the bridge in another photographer's stream.

Go, abi!

Posted December 6, 2007 10:34 AM by fidelio

I don't exactly miss -- really, I'm just nostalgic for -- the old disemvoweller from our pre-computer days, with its clunky viewscope, and its re-inking assembly that always got clogged.

Posted December 6, 2007 10:39 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Congrats abi!

I was hoping for a new open thread, 'cause I'd like to borrow the collective expertise here on a couple of questions. The last person offering useful advice on this topic abruptly stopped speaking to me, and I am wandering around cluelessly in the technological wilderness. I figure the accumulated know-how here is probably significant. Any help and advice would be appreciated.

(1) if one were going to register a domain name, what company is the best combination of cheap and adequately supplied with support for idiots? Any registrars to avoid?

(2) if one were going to blog, what blogging, um, entity(?) is the best? I'd be curious to hear from anyone with a blog about experiences with LJ, Movable Type, Typepad, Blogspot, etc. I assume it's difficult to transfer stuff over once started, so I'd like to make an intelligent choice.

(3) I don't read many blogs and wandered in here originally because I've met the NHs several times via fandom. I don't think this applies to ML because the community aspect here is the strongest I've ever seen, but any idea what attracts people in general to read blogs by total strangers? I have a friend who has several hundred regular readers on her LJ apparently just because she lives in NYC and has a pulse. I love her but I find this mystifying. Why do people do this? Am I just a martian in finding this extraordinarily weird?

(Why, yes, it appears that I plan to commit bloggage, and since talking to myself bores me I hope other people will come talk to me there. I'm planning on divesting myself of some body mass the hard way over the holidays (the surgical solution to holiday depression - sort of an extreme version of cutting and self-mutilation!) and - assuming I survive the process - will need something distracting to do that doesn't involve gauze and leaking body fluids while penned in bed/house for a couple of weeks. I don't think O'Brian will last me a full two weeks. Pondering the mysteries of Regency drawers and poussettes just might, but I expect I'll also manage to set up a blog. I also fantasize about being visited by a Segway, which strikes me as the perfect solution to the combination of too easily fatigued to walk around and too medicated/mobility-impaired to drive.)

Posted December 6, 2007 10:43 AM by Susan

Teresa @ 110... I found a photo of Abi with the NEW disewvoweller.

Posted December 6, 2007 10:45 AM by Serge

Susan @ 111... I'd recommend LJ. It's very cheap. And very easy to get started and you have a choice of layouts and colors. (I'm still miffed that people didn't like my LJ's original bright-green background.)

Posted December 6, 2007 10:49 AM by Serge

if one were going to blog, what blogging, um, entity(?) is the best? I'd be curious to hear from anyone with a blog about experiences with LJ, Movable Type, Typepad, Blogspot, etc. I assume it's difficult to transfer stuff over once started, so I'd like to make an intelligent choice.

I have something of a fondness for Blog City, though I know it's not one of the popular choices. Their page-layout editor is horrifically clunky, and I'm not nuts about the fact that the edit-HTML option just runs everything together as soon as you close that window, but they have hands-down the best stats-tracking I've seen in any of the free blogging platforms and a very nice WYSIWYG entry editor. I prefer them to Blogger and LiveJournal (especially because LJ is blocked by many sites as a "chat" URL).

Posted December 6, 2007 10:50 AM by Carrie S.

I should clarify that it does not have to be a free blog platform (thank you, Carrie, for the word I needed!) I am willing to pay a reasonable amount. I also do not have my own server, so it has to be, um, stored(?) on {platforms}'s machines and be friendly to a non-programmer.

Posted December 6, 2007 10:56 AM by Susan

#111 Susan
LJ is pretty much designed for the barely computer literate (I know this because that's me). The main attraction for it otherwise (AFAIK) is the ease of connecting with people, given that their format is designed mainly for that sort of thing. Also, you get a fairly good service for free, if, like me, you don't want to spend any money you don't have to so that you can spend it somewhere else. I have no idea if the new ownership will be as inclined to get panicky about trivial idiocies as the old one was.

I can't speak to other services' virtues or failings, not having used them.

Posted December 6, 2007 10:57 AM by fidelio

Oh, I should add: Blog City has paid options as well if you want more storage space or more bandwidth, but their default is like 2 gigs a month and I've never come within shouting distance of exceeding it. Also you don't have to use the page-layout editor if you don't want to, because they have a fine selection of default appearances for most any taste.

Posted December 6, 2007 11:02 AM by Carrie S.

I like Lj, it has some swell social features, but I might hold off for a bit, because the new purchase by СУП has some interesting implications.

Me, I'm invested, so it will take some effort for my intertia to overcome the loss of features I like (and the ease of audience I've gained).

TK

Posted December 6, 2007 11:15 AM by Terry (still in Germany)

Right, fidelio. The basic is free, but the inexpensive yearly payment allows you room for lots of pictures. And for more icons. ("How do I feel today? Scared that my my boss will fire me? Then maybe Wile E. Coyote with the 'Help!' sign might be indicated.")

Posted December 6, 2007 11:17 AM by Serge

Abi! Yay! That's so cool!

Posted December 6, 2007 11:21 AM by Jo Walton

More about the purchase.

It looks as if some of the present tools being added (to flag, accounts, and thus make it harder for people to see) are related to СУП being a Russian company, and Lj being the blog engine of choice in Russia.

Blogs were a large part of the Orange Revolution (which was a setback for Putin). СУП is tied to Putin, and the Kremlin, so there is an incentive to be able to break up lines of easy communication, should there be a populist/progressive backlash to the present goings on.

СУП says they will remain incorporated in California, but....

Posted December 6, 2007 11:23 AM by Terry (still in Germany)

Okay, I'm doing this all wrong! Let me spell out the things I neglected to mention in my earlier post.

(1) In large part, I am doing this to talk about Dance History Things which are filling up my brain and spilling out my ears (and, unfortunately, my mouth in front of people who are bored senseless by my geekery). This means it will be something of a professional blog for me and should be able to accommodate things like a store and a calendar widget and music and video files.

(2) LJ's various, um, quirks about what they allow have kind of turned me off, and I find the whole "friends" thing and the associated high-school-type social dramas I have observed around it more than slightly nauseating. It would have to be a pretty spiffy platform to outweigh these issues.

(3) I am not a programmer, but I can find my way around HTML reasonably well.

(4) As anyone who knows me in person can testify, "dipping a toe in the water" is not actually an aspect of my personality. More like "swan dive off the high board" (and hope there isn't concrete below.) I've spent several months thinking about this intensely and whether I could do something interesting and worthwhile and informative. Of course, I may end up {splat} on the concrete, but if I'm going to do this, I will make a serious attempt to create a real resource for dance history geeks and anyone who needs information on the topic.

Posted December 6, 2007 11:33 AM by Susan

Underlying my thoughts on this whole blog thing is the whole pixel-stained technopeasant issue and how that applies to being a dance historian in the 21st century. I've been thinking hard about the bit about the enemy of an SF writer being obscurity, not piracy and how this relates to my natural tendency to hover protectively around my research and mutter "mine mine mine!" Giving away fiction appears to do good things for a writer's sales; I'm in a different position in that I don't really have actual works to peddle (someday there will be Books, but not yet), so what I am peddling is being hired to teach or lecture. Obscurity is definitely a problem. Does giving research away for free help with that? Gonna find out!

Also, I miss dance-geeking with my teacher. No one person can replace him but maybe a small horde would come close.

Posted December 6, 2007 11:42 AM by Susan

Susan, given what I've seen of some of the more dig-deeper-hole aspects of their handling of various issues, I can understand your reaction to LJ's management (we all remember the Terror of the Nipples, right?), and as Terry notes, we have no idea of what the New Order will bring us. I haven't been directly affected by any of this, but I've noticed it, along with a lot of other people.

As for teh drama, well, there are people who are going to have to have teh drama where ever they go and whatever they do when get there. There are countless people on LJ who manage to blog and comment on others' blogs like sensible people. There are also idiots aplenty out there, as you've noticed already.

But yay! Susan blogging about dance stuff! Woo-hoo! Susan with a dance website! More woo-hoo!

Posted December 6, 2007 11:48 AM by fidelio

I think Happy Camp is somewhere in the general (CA Gold Rush) vicinity of Port Wine, where my maternal grandmother was born in a union of the Caya and Farren families. The only trace of Port Wine now is an obscure plaque -- no buildings left at all.

Posted December 6, 2007 11:50 AM by Faren Miller

quoth fidelio
But yay! Susan blogging about dance stuff! Woo-hoo! Susan with a dance website! More woo-hoo!

Thankee. But, um, could you please explain why you're so excited? I'm back to the mystified thing again. I know why the topic excites me and a few other folks here who are also dance history types, but, um, are you another one? Have you felt a hole in your life where knowledge of historical dance forms ought to be? Are you a writer who wants to not be held up to ridicule 'cause you display rampaging ignorance in dance scenes? Or are you just abstractly excited by in-depth geekery about anything? Inquiring minds want to know!

Posted December 6, 2007 11:58 AM by Susan

Faren @ 125

I know where Weitchpec is, and it's in Humboldt county (we made a trip with part between Redding and Eureka, about the time I /e/s/c/a/p/e/d/ graduated from high school). So I'm guessing that Happy Camp is, too. Not that there wasn't more than one of them ....

Posted December 6, 2007 12:05 PM by P J Evans

Here's some excellent Christmas music by Praetorius--this cassette is on the rare side (I have the record), but I expect that Praetorius' other Christmas music is worth catching up with.

In regards to the mall murder/suicide, terrorism, and various other things: I've been thinking for a while that the desire to make a difference is a very strong motivation, and some people will settle for making a negative difference if they can't make a positive one. I don't know if there are people who prefer making a negative difference.

I don't have a feeling for what proportion of people are content with making some difference to the people they know or a smallish group, and what proportion feels that it takes a much larger than average difference to count for anything.

In any case, it seems to me that conventional education is set up on the assumption that most people shouldn't expect to make a difference.

What would a society look like where the desire to make a difference was taken seriously?

Posted December 6, 2007 12:06 PM by Nancy Lebovitz

#111 - 122: store may be the major consideration. Taking things as a business (including adjunct to a major interest regardless of making money on the net) and not a friends and family operation nor yet an effort to sway the next election then:
I suggest separating the 3 elements of:
(1) Registration
(2) Hosting
(3) Help

(1)I'd register with a top lever vendor not a lower level reseller. There is a little savings possible with a reseller but more long term assurance with a top level vendor - especially when registration and hosting are separated.

I'd register a number of related names, variant spellings and all the domains com/net/org/eu et. al..

(2) I'd consider hosting with the top level registration vendor - e.g. but not necessarily Network Solutions - and also look locally for a host with the possibility of face to face problem resolution when the store goes down in a seasonal rush.

(3) I'd find help locally whether it be a wiseass teenager or a volunteer at a Senior Center as available.

Posted December 6, 2007 12:08 PM by Clark E. Myers

I'm excited by geeks being geeks. I read knit blogs but crochet, I read a coffee blog and can't stand the taste, I read sewing blogs while forbidding myself any sewing projects, so a dance blog is just fine.

Posted December 6, 2007 12:09 PM by Diatryma

Well, I'm always excited by in-depth geekery about things, and I'm also excited whenever said in-depth geekery has a chance to escape into the world and spread like (insert fast-spreading thing of your choice).

Also, while I'm not a big dancer, I think's a fun, cool thing, and the thought of having another place to aim dance-inquiring minds among the various re-enactors I know makes me chortle.

Also, having the site will get you more kudos (and possibly more work) and how can that be bad?

Posted December 6, 2007 12:10 PM by fidelio

Susan: I'm for Wordpress. It's very flexible and can incorporate most anything that you'd like to do.

Cliopatria's History Blogroll (ground central for the historoblogosphere) doesn't seem to list any dance history blogs, so there's a gaping hole in the internet's knowledge of dance history. And of course, in-depth geekery on most any subject should be supported.

Posted December 6, 2007 12:23 PM by Suzanne F.

Susan, I wouldn't worry too much about the action of Snacky's Law on an LJ friend's list. I put mine together as a reading list in Buffy fandom, and innocently included both sides of a few of the most lethal feuds in that notoriously fractious fandom; I'm on good terms with nearly all of them still. The secret is to be unwanky yourself, and to remember that f-lock is your friend when you are tempted to vent.

This has not stopped me from being banned on a couple of other journals, most memorably for objecting, loudly and specifically, to a verbose essay contending that Spike was not ADHD. The author expanded on a list of that character's qualities which were, from the point of view of a person with an actual ADHD diagnosis, pretty much a checklist of ADDult behaviors. Her amazing skills at tl;dr made a point by point refutation more than my bad wiring was up to, and the frustration of the attempt led me to intemperate (although perfectly accurate) snark.

Compared to the noticeboards on which I got my earliest online schooling Live Journal is incredibly civil if also terribly passive-aggressive.

Posted December 6, 2007 12:35 PM by JESR

Yay Susan!!!111

Q:(1) register a domain name?
A: They are all worthy of avoidance.
I use godaddy, because they are convenient and cheap. (7$/yr) They also incorporate a whois anonymizing service for an extra 10$/yr. They sell a ton of other crap services on their site, which has an execrable interface. Look for coupon codes, btw, you'll save some money. You'll need a calculator to get the best deal - it's stupid stuff comparing like 5$ off 7 domain names or 30% off 1.

Make sure you sign up for somebody's anonymizing service, otherwise your billing address, phone number, and email will be visible to the whole internet and assorted stalkers.

Q:(2) if one were going to blog, what blogging, um, entity(?) is the best?
A: Wordpress. Scalzi uses it, and hasn't been able to break it, unlike Moveable Type. It's free, unlike Moveable Type. You can get it with almost any hosting company. It's extensible: putting in new plugins is as simple as dropping a textfile in the right directory and picking it with the (pretty good) graphical user interface. It has plugins for everything, including spam filtration. I use it, though not rigorously. It's alterable: you can download new themes that rearrange what things are presented, and how they are styled, easily. You can learn to make your own relatively easily, it's just bits of html and css style sheets, with a dash of learning that this bit of code does this operation.

You haven't asked about web hosting: if you did not know, hosting is renting a server, and is a distinct service from renting a domain name. You don't need (and don't want) your webhost and your registrar being the same company. (Connecting the two means copying a line of text from your webhost into a textbox on your registrar's site. Very easy.)

Q: (3) any idea what attracts people in general to read blogs by total strangers?
A: Expertise. Network effects (i.e. all of us.) Don't worry, you'll be fine.

Posted December 6, 2007 12:44 PM by midori

Susan, I'm an enthusiastic, barely adequate dancer. However...

I read historical novels and history tomes like other people consume mind altering substances. So, reading a blog on history of dance, development and progression of dance, how dance affects social interaction, etc. would, to use a phrase that I rarely use, rock my socks.

I can't believe I just used that phrase. ::face palms::

The good thing is, I'm fairly ignorant on the subject of dance, so you could tell me anything you wanted and I'm believe it! Oh, the power you could wield for good or evil. Bwahahahaha!!

The plethora of exclamation points I am using just shows how excited I am at the prospect of you having a blog.

Posted December 6, 2007 1:26 PM by Tania

It occurred to me the other day that I'd been listening to Teresa's theme song for over a year without even realizing it!

Posted December 6, 2007 1:29 PM by Skwid

Susan, I'm excited because I like seeing people geek out, dance is interesting, and I have always been interested in the bits that you've posted here.

And maybe, just maybe, I can convince my SO that we need to make period costume and to go dancing.

Also, my LibraryThing fascination has been superceded by a Ravlery fascination. (redrose on both) I'll be back to LT as soon as I finish inputting the last pile of projects into my queue, and maybe my stash.

(And the spellchecker doesn't know supercede.)

Posted December 6, 2007 1:35 PM by Nancy C. Mittens

NancyC @ 137

Possibly the spellchecker wants to be superseded.

Posted December 6, 2007 1:45 PM by P J Evans

Dang it! I looked it up at dictionary.com, and thought it was ok.

Posted December 6, 2007 1:48 PM by Nancy C. Mittens

Susan, #111: Registering a domain name and finding a domain host are two different things. For the former, I strongly recommend godaddy.com, despite the silly-sounding name. For the latter, you'll ne