Ookings of d00m

neeuqdrazil and I are thinking about going camping on the weekend of July 17/18. Any suggestions on where good places to go are? We went to Rockwood last year, and while it was nice, we feel like we pretty much did everythign to do there last time. We also ended up having the flodo lights from the bathrooms pointing at our camp site, so our spot was overly well lit for camping.

Food

Pasta with chicken, spinach and sun-dried tomato. And a little chicen stock to round out the sauce. Delicious! And the leftovers ended up having a lot of chicken, since it had drifted to the bottom of the pot when we first made it. So, yummy AND healthy.

Music

Album: Mind.in.a.box's R.E.T.R.O.

Genre: Is C64 pop a genre? Video game bleep/bloop music.

Similar Bands: Stuff from the demo scene - blockparty type stuff. Vaguely similar to Ladytron and Freezepop.

Review: I yet again picked up an album based on a track I heard via @ISNradio; "8 Bits Are Enough For ME". The rest of the album is less club-friendly, but still good stuff. It bleeps and bloops, and there are heavily vocodered lyrics on many of the tracks. It's a lot less aggressive than most of my music, and more comtemplative. It doesn't have the momentum that psytrance music has. Which, come to think of it, may contribute to my frustrating discovery at Notacon that hackers do not dance.

Playlist Potential: Not quite sure. A couple tracks might be candidates for Bedtime. I don't really have a good niche for bleep-bloop stuff as yet. 8 Bits should probably be on a driving mix.

Anyone know where I can buy the rings used in keychains? I don't want the fob part, just the rings. In bulk, because I frequently find I have uses for them, so if I had a bag of 100 (or 1000) I wouldn't have to worry about finding another free keychain to cannibalize.

8. Chill by Elizabeth Bear

Probably my favourite Bear setting. Nanotech! A decadent aristocracy fighting back form the brink of annihilation! In spaaaaace! I had forgotten how much influence this had on the Nano-Victorian Future setting. I want a basilisk.

9. Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Steampunk! Zombies! Airships! Believable characters! Boneshaker's up for a Hugo, and it deserves to be.

10. The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios

*This* is the book on science and superheroes I wanted. Kakalios clearly loves comics in a way that Gresh and Weinberg (of "Science Of Superheroes") do not. His basic approach is to grant each superhero a single "miracle exception" - say, the Flash's ability to run really fast - and see how much of the portrayal of the character otherwise obeys the laws of physics. I have a better understanding of relativity and quantum mechanics after having read this book. AND it's an enjoyable read! I highly recommend this book to foolks with an interest in any of a) phsyics, b) superheroes, or c) education - the book comes from open lectures Kakalios gave at the university he teaches at.

11. Jhereg by Steven Brust

(reread) After the latest Vlad Taltos book came out, I realised that, since I'd read a number of them from the library and hadn't been logging them at the time, I had no idea which ones I had and had not read. So I'm starting over and re-reading all of the Draegara novels. I think, in total, there are something like 20 of them. Reviews will probably be brief and as spoiler-free as can be. For Jhereg; meet Vlad. Charming Vlad is charming.

12. Yendi by Steven Brust

Clever Vlad is clever.

13. Teckla by Steven Brust

Conflicted Vlad is conflicted!

14. Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow

Definitely the weirdest Cory book I've ever read. I found the politics felt a bit pasted on to what was an otherwise interesting novel. Not that there was anything deeply wrong with the poltical unwiring and dumpster diving parts, they just didn't really fit in with the rest of the stuff.

15. The Supergirls by Mike Madrid

One of those non-fiction books with a really long subtitle that I am not typing out. Madrid attempts to cover the history of women in superhero comics with a feminist viewpoint. He certainly covers the range of women in comics, and clearly knows his underwear perverts, but I think the feminist angle could use more work, and the book as a whole could use a more vigorous editorial staff. To be fair, it is put out by a small press with a bit of an agenda, so I'm inclined to forgive a certain lack of polish. I found Madrid's language was quite casual - at times, I think, a little too casual for a feminist reader. I cautiously suggest that the book could use a little more jargon. There were places where the male gaze was sort of talked around, for example. I'm also a bit annoyed that Madrid used the old saw about a woman's sexuality being a sort of power over men without pausing to deconstruct it.

I'd say The Supergirls is a book about comics with some feminism in it, instead of a feminist book about comics. It's not awful, and I'm glad I read it, but I think it needed to be about twice as long with more editing to really give the subject matter a solid exploration.

16. Taltos by Steven Brust

Novice Vlad is a novice!

17. Phoenix by Steven Brust

Frustrated Vlad is frustrated.

Now I just need to get the next Vlad books back from mycrazyhair, and wait for my Chapters order with the five after that to show up.

I've been webcasting my RPG sessions so that our player from Ottawa, dagibbs, can play remotely. I've had two nice microphones crap out after 30 min of use, so I'm giving up on the "go to best buy/futureshop and pick something up" model. Does anyone have any suggestions for computer microphones that are good enough to pick up a small living room of people?

Additionally, I have decided that I really need to get a good multitool. Any recommendations from the LazyWeb? A minimum requirement is that it has a good, sharp blade in it. Something that can be used as a bottle opener is also key. Screwdrivers, pliers, etc. are all bonus.

Rötersand's Random is Resistance, MFG's Message From God and Memmaker's How To Enlist in a Robot Uprising.


I wrote out the full posts for weeks 3 and 4 only to have them vanish when I hit R while over a text field in w3m - I forgot to "enter" the text field first, so that was "refresh" instead. So I'm now recreating those reviews and adding in week 5.

Week 4

Food

PC chicken korma while home sick on a Tuesday. Not bad, but could have used some vegetables.

Music

Album:Rötersand's Random is Resistance

Genre: EBM/Futurepop

Similar Bands: Rötersand are a lot like VNV Nation. Except (I believe) German, so while thought is still put into lyrics, there are occasional tranlastion weirds like "as you fulfill my craves". The rest of the Futurepop/EBM crowd falls in as similar, too - Covenant, Apoptygma Berzerk, etc.

Review: Much like the new VNV, RiR has a few high energy dance songs, a couple slow sad songs, and a bit that's more poppy than I prefer. The only track that really stood out for me was War On Error, and even then, I preferred the Declaration remix off the EP to the main album version.

Playlist Potential: I might go back and dig out somethign for the Workout mix.

Week 5

Food

PBJ - PC all natural peanut butter, strawberry jam and multigrain bread. A quick lunch on Good Friday before heading out to Woodstock (no, not the interesting one).

Music

Album:MFG's Message From God

Genre: Psytrance. Which is yet another electronic music genre. Described by its detractors as the most emotionless and soulless of the various branches of electronica. There is a degree of truth to that - while Industrial can often be described as Angry or Sad, and a Happy Hardcore is, well, Happy, Psytrance doesn't really have a dominant emotional theme. The dominant sensation is basically "motion". Which means it's great to dance to. In the "X people doing Y with computers" notation, Psytrance could be described as "Hippies doing drugs with thier computers".

Similar Bands: Infected Mushroom more or less define the Psytrance genre. Other similar sounding bands include various artist on a free compilation corbet pointed me at years back with names like "Troll Scientists" and "Astroschnauzzer".

Review: It goes doof, oontz, and occasionally tweet, with plenty of echo effect. Very little lyrics, and most of that is samples. It's just the sort of music to dance to for several hours, zone out and let the endorphins carry you. It's music that doesn't demand direct attention while still making me want to move. Exactly the sort of thing I've been looking for to fill in gaps in my music collection.

Playlist Potential: Oddly enough, I don't have a Rave playlist. It's too mellow for Workout, and too energetic for Meditation, Peace or Bedtime. It'll get picked up by the smart playlists for electronica (OontzOontz and DoofDoof - the latter includes synthpop and a couple other things the former excludes).

Week 6

Food

Was going to be daal with fried onions, spinach and peas over rice. When I opened the container fter nuking it, it was clear by smell that the rice has gone off, so lunch went into the trash. Which is too bad - the daal was good on Sunday night. I'm going to buy new music anyway. It's the thought that counts? Stupid rice.

Music

Album:Memmaker's How To Enlist in a Robot Uprising

Genre: Electro-Industrial? Techno Industrial? Something like that. Definitely darker and more aggressive in sound than Psytrance, anyway.

Similar Bands: Apparently, Valium Era - I grabbed some free Valium Era from their website at about the same time, and had a hard time telling which one I was listening to.

Review: Heavily dancable, minimal lyrics. I grabbed this album because one of thier tracks, Energon³ sounded great on ISN radio. I was somewhat disappointed when I realised that the track I loved was a remix, and the original doesn't have Optimus Prime samples in it. That said, it's decent album that I have no regrets about aquiring.

Playlist Potential: Get Your Ass To Mars might end up on the Workout playlist.

I think I might need a source of new music that's not Industrial for a little while.

PSA for Rogers cell phone users; their rules on tethering are changing. Basically, from what I can tell, if you've got a data plan of 1 GB/month or more, you're good, otherwise, it's just turned off.

Ok, I know that there was a weekend in there somewhere. I seem to have lost track of it, though. I know there was singing, movie rental and playing old video games, and laser scissors. I somehow seemed to have missed out on doing a bunch of things I meant to do, though.

You can now track (some) TTC streetcars online at NextBus. The service also includes a live map of the cars (like the one you can see at Spadina station), and a text service where you give the stop and a time limit, and it'll text you when the car is that many minutes away. It's GPS based, so it should be accurate even when the cars are not on schedule.

The streetcars with the worst service (Queen) are not on the service yet, but St. Clair, Bathurst, College and Dundas all are.

someone must have noticed a big hit in use; most of the routes have been pulled.