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A memo from the Faculty of Suicidal Ornithology.

Attention local bird life. What the fuck is it with all of you? What is it about me going on long drives that makes you all want to swoop in front of me and saunter across the road while I'm bearing down on you at a highly illegal 135kph? Do you think I'm fucking around? Do you...
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elichrusos:
Hey poppet. You still in the same town? I've just moved back. we should something something drink coffee talk about things.
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Okay, I've been away from here for ages, for assorted reasons, but now I'm back and I have something to pimp.

There's an online auction going on at the moment called Art that Scares You, to help get some cash together for a well-regarded local horror writer who's having a bit of a tough time at the moment. A lot of people have clubbed...
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Well. Blarg.

My weary-but-happy travelog post was meant to go here a couple of days ago, but one of the things I managed to do while I was in Melbourne was pick up some bug that was not cooked out of me by the heat in Darwin as I'd hoped, but seemed to just draw strength from it and left me listless and half-coherent for...
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ironorchid:
Did you leave it in the pocket of your other pants?
ironorchid:
Typical.
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Late March is the shade-tree sweet spot. The sun has drifted just far enough north in the sky that the northern end of my balcony is in shade from the big tree all afternoon, which makes it the perfect place to take repeated mugs of coffee and, to take a sample from this afternoon, trade paperbacks of Transmetropolitan, SF anthologies and the laptop. A...
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ironorchid:
Sounds like a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

I'd say knitting has big crossovers with lots of fandoms. Lots of people do it.

I read SFF, but I tend not to be particularly fannish about it, unless bonding with someone over mutual regard for certain authors. Actually, I get a bit like that about knitting techniques when I meet other knitters.

I'd say what they have in common is a certain level of commitment and obssessiveness.
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The upside of exercising at lunchtime and feeling overheated for the rest of the afternoon is that it's a sign that my metabolism is still in high gear and, hopefully, is sucking dry the various overfilled fat cells I have to fuel itself.

The tradeoff is that even though I shower once I get back, I'm still so hot that I sweat for hours afterward...
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elichrusos:
If you run your wrists under really cold water for a few minutes you'll drop your core body temperature a bit. Don't do it too much, though, or you'll be shivering in your chair.

Your mileage may, of course, be within one standard deviation...

WoW, that's right.

Talking faster wouldn't help me. One of the most common reasons that I stumble over my words is that I'm mentally stepping back from what I'm saying and editing it. Sometimes I'll make three or four false starts into a sentence as I keep thinking of different ways to express something. If I spoke faster all that would happen would be I'd get even further into what I was saying before I had to reverse out of the sentence and come back into it, and that would make me even more annoying to listen to.

I'm told I have a pleasant speaking voice, which hopefully is useful in winning me a little grace on things like this.


I do this. Worse yet, when I get emotional, my vocabulary falls appart and I revert to french, or japanese, or franco-japanese[1]. When MissEllie turned up at my work, I just jumped up and down and made little squuealing noises until I rememebred how to, you know, verb.

My speaking voice is inconstant. I went through a phase of mortification of the self, and one of the things I tore apart was my mode of speech[2]. Now I'm trying to put it back together, but I haven't quite figured out which parts I want yet.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)
1: Not many people understand the latter. I tell people it's like the Harlan's world Slavic-Japanese, but really it's just unintelligible to people who are not me.

2: It was hard to follow anyway, on account of people had been asleep for several million years and knew little of those early sixties sit-coms of which I spoke.

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Achievement for the night: I finally know what the "LEEROOYY JEEENNKIIINS!" meme is about.

Ain't much, but it's something.
phantasy:
Hah, well now you can explain it to me! How are you lately?
elichrusos:
It's a world of warcraft thing, right?

do the non-linear thing in conversation too: as I talk I'm sparking off all sorts of associations and tangents and following them to see where they lead, so that I stumble on what I'm saying and sometimes trail off completely as I lose whatever my original thread was.

The odd part is that my friends all talk about what a ferociously linear conversationalist I am, because I overcompensate for all the thought scattering that was going on by running my actual conversational track along rails. It's not unusual for me to finish a bit of conversation by saying "okay, but to finish the train of thought from before that point, X. And to finish the thought that I was in the middle of when I started talking about X, Y. And to finish the anecdote I was talking about when we got onto Y, Z. Okay, your turn."


I'm terrible. I need a card filled with prompts to get through a fucking paragraph without ending up in Tokyo. I have to rely on whomever I'm talking with to prompt me when my sentances fall appart. I aspirem to be a linear conversationalist, but I'd need visual aids too keep it up for any length of time.

Some people would look at this and realise they need to talk just a tad slower, so they can fit their thoughts around their words. Those people are quitters.

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I'm not getting any better at this.

I'm right into the symbolism thing, of making a big blog post on New Years' Day to set up the tenor and timbre and tone of the coming year, snapshot of where I am now, resolutions and goals and what have you. What I'm not into, it would appear, is the execution. Here I am posting an excuse...
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elichrusos:
I know, right? It's like an internet staple, or something.

I leave Canberra this week. It's really daunting.
elichrusos:
I've a mountain of stuff to pack next time I come up; I might be back and forth for a while yet.

I drink a long macciato, but only if it's well made. It's probably the best part of life.
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So, this evening I went to DUST '07, an end-of-year project showcase for students at the Australian National University's new-media courses. On show were films, animations, visual-effects and VR showcases, interactive arts and sound pieces. It was held in the foyer of the National Museum, a nicely-designed space that made a good backdrop for an event like this.

As I suspect is often the case...
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nikonphoto80:
I wish they made everyone in the US vote, maybe we wouldn't get dumb fucks like bush for president if everyone had to vote.
nikonphoto80:
Sorry I didn't get back to your comment sooner. Well see the thing is in the US people always complain that they don't like the person in office but half of them are to lazy to get out there and do anything about it. and did you know that Bush got less votes then Al Gore when he ran for office the first time, yes Al Gore got more votes then bush. Do you know what the Electoral College is? if so then that is why bush got into office, it is a very out dated system that should have been taken away a long time ago.

If we were made to vote then maybe the lazy hippies would have gotten off there ass and voted and we all know they don't like bush.


Oh and our debates do have a lot of shit talking going on.
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GOOD: Being a considerate neighbour and not doing your laundry late at night when the noise will bug your downstairs neighbour whose window is right above the laundry.

BAD: Being the sort of smug bastard who gloats about what a good neighbour they are for not doing etc.

GOOD: Actually getting home in time to put a load of washing through without breaching the first...
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frost:
they put her under and shove a needle where the duct is/should be to open it up.

and thank you on the back tattoo...there is more done on the ON GOLD set. wink

XXX


p.s. the donuts were nasty! puke
ironorchid:
I guess it's a last resort line of defense.
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So who else went out to watch the lunar eclipse?

It had begun when I left work this evening, and so the first surreal little touch was looking around the streets in the middle of town and seeing people, usually in just ones and twos, standing outside buildings staring quietly into the night sky as the shadow came from the moon's south pole and ate...
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_elichrusos:
The doubled comments. I forgot that SG would render 1: ORLY as 1shockedRLY. And that bugs me.
_elichrusos:

Thank you for that, that was very interesting to read. I always like finding out about all the layers of skill and detail that lie behind something very everyday like saying "coffee, thanks", handing over money and getting stuff to drink in exchange. I'm trying to apply it now to my own buying experiences, although I'm too sleepwhacked to do a good job of it right now.



I've been putting of my caffination because I have work to do, and now I'm starting to get a headache. I hate Saturday, the good coffee is closed.

The Brinkman performance was excellent. I now have the full book and CD too, as well as another "lit-hop" CD with some other poetry/rap fusion. Let me know if you want to listen/read. (I know that making that offer is a rather delicate thing since it would involve a lot less anonymity, so emphasis on no pressure, but I'd also hate you to miss something you wanted to hear for want of me making the offer.)



I'd love to take you up on that. I have some serious personal things to work out in the next few months, which provide the culmination of nearly a year's work. When that's done, I'll more than likely drop my veil of anonymity.

Also, I think I may have got you busted by the local media with that link I posted: http://the-riotact.com/?p=5851 . Sorry about that.



Think nothing of it. The only thing worse than being talked about, et al.

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I have no work ethic and am as easily distracted as a kitten. Feel free to mock me.
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_elichrusos:
Things I did not just do: Double post.

whatever
grimreaperess:
Thanks! I got the application in on Sunday and promptly crashed.
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Ah, exercise.

After a bit of a hiatus in which work and travel were taking me away from my lunchtime group and the season was making me indolent and hibernation-prone, I'm starting to be semi-active again.

Exercise is like writing. I cringe at the thought of having to do it, put it off, build it up into this hideous big ordeal in my head when...
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_elichrusos:


Exercise is like writing. I cringe at the thought of having to do it, put it off, build it up into this hideous big ordeal in my head when I'm trying to actually get myself to do it, and then, if I haven't managed to talk myself out of it, I feel fantastic afterward and keep having to remind myself: "Remember this? The big goofy smile, the spring in your step? This is why you do this shit."



Hi. I believe you might be me.

I landed right back home; seems I never left it in the first place.

_elichrusos:
I do that ALL the time. I'm terrible for it, you know?