The Pipal Tree

Today Lilian turned 1 month.


  Day of her birth

  1 month birthday

Oh and there are a ton more pictures at http://traceracer.smugmug.com/gallery/5281083_htBFf#322997625_zYqrn

UPCOMING EVENTS AT TOWN

Thursday September 4th - Nuclearfest 2008
presented by radio-active-music.com

Thursday October 30th - Spooky! IX

Thursday November 27th - The Immortal Tour
feat. The Cruxshadows, Ayria and I, Scintilla

Pricing and full lineups TBA soon.
All events will be 8pm doors, 18+

We regret to inform everyone that Club Liv/Mahogany Restaurant/Bohemian Caverns will not be open this evening due to an issue with their business license. They'll be back open tomorrow so we will be down in the Caverns with Die Sektor next Thursday.

Again, we are sorry for matters outside of our hands and also will be rescheduling the Philly Invasion. Please pass this along to others to avoid trekking into the city!

From CNN/Money:

A report from the U.S. Labor Department showed new unemployment claims rose much more than expected last week. New applications filed for jobless benefits rose by a seasonally adjusted 34,000 to 406,000 - a level not seen since hurricanes devastated the Gulf Coast in September 2005.

and from The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter:

Wachovia acknowledged it is "exiting the General Bank wholesale mortgage origination channel" in a press release today

Notice has been sent to brokers that SunTrust Bank Equity Wholesale is being shut down, and no more equity products will be offered through the wholesale line of business. Applications will not be accepted after today, and all loans must be closed and funded by 2008-08-29.

Downey Savings, the 'Friendlier, Easier Place to Bank' - Ailing savings & loan Downey Financial Corp. said Thursday morning before market open that it lost $218.9 million during the quarter — that’s a loss of $7.86 per share — as the number of bad loans on its books continued to spiral higher. The quarterly loss represents a huge swing into the red for the Newport Beach, Calif.-based lender, which one year ago reported earnings of $32.7 million, or $1.17 per share.

Oh, and the DOW's down -283.10, after a small rallying period over the last week.

From CNN:

The interrogator's "good faith" and "honest belief" that the interrogation will not cause such suffering protects the interrogator, the memo adds.

"Because specific intent is an element of the offense, the absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture," Jay Bybee, then the assistant attorney general, wrote in the memo.

Having read the article from the City Paper, I am terribly sad.

I am sad because the showing of The Dark Knight we caught Saturday night ran so late we decided to not go to Spellbound. Based on a comment made by Kangal earlier in the week, I had been planning to show up wearing a headlamp, carrying my pickaxe. I am terribly, terribly upset that I missed my chance to make the portrayal of our scene in that article even more silly than it was.

So, I have a great many friends who are the aunt or uncle of the next generation of their family. It's a fun role to be in, but it's also probably a decent market, as the folks at Savvy Auntie have determined. It is apparently an entire site dedicated to parenting tips for people who aren't parents. Now, I'm entirely skeptical of whether this will actually be useful in the long run or if it's just going to be an initial burst of curiosity followed by an ivillage-like slide into mediocrity and noise, but I'll definitely be watching to find out.

Originally published at Ready, Fire, Aim!. Please leave any comments there.

I haven’t been watching a lot of anime recently, which is a problem I intend on correcting soon. However, I have started two new shows:

Record of Lodoss War (TV series): I understand people get upset about the continuity problems between the OAVs and the TV series, but it’s been long enough since I watched the OAVs that I’ve forgotten all the details that might have confused me. I’ve watched the first seven eps so far, and I’m enjoying it. It’s always been very D&D, and given that I’m slowly reading my way through 4E, it makes the show that much more fun.

Cardcaptor Sakura: I’ve loved most of the Clamp animated series I’ve watched - Chobits and Angelic Layer in particular, X (TV) not so much - but Sakura is what really put them on the map. The characters and premise are delightful, all the more so by deliberately commenting on the magical girl genre via the character of Tomoyo. (I’ve grabbed two quotes from her for the magical girl section in Seiyuu.) Kero is also ridiculously cute, especially with an Osaka accent. Watching the series in Japanese with subtitles puts me in mind of rewatching shows I own in that way, to give the original seiyuu a listen and to immerse myself that much more in the language I really should redevote myself to learning. Sakura will be a long haul - 70 episodes - but I want to watch it before diving into the recent Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles and XXXholic.

In anime-related news, I’m watching the last season of Avatar, now that it’s all been broadcast, and I have Batman: Gotham Knight, the Batman franchise’s answer to The Animatrix, in from Netflix.

Who here has been to the Lebanese Taverna?

If you have, have you had their garlic sauce?

If you have had their garlic sauce, do you have any idea how they make it?

Because I need to mainline it into my face.

Got so busy yesterday I forgot to post here and mention this BIG DEAL FOR ME:


PENDANT PRODUCTIONS PROUDLY PRESENTS:


Cover art by Kristen Bays
for Pendant Productions



Wonder Woman: Champion of Themyscira is a serialized, full-cast audio adventure with one new episode every month! Available for FREE download as an mp3 or Podcast!

Also available - a commentary with the writer, director and assistant director!

iTunes link:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=207999057

Podcast link:
http://www.pendantaudio.com/ww_podcast.xml

Download link:
http://www.pendantaudio.com/wonderwoman.php

Issue 30, VINDICATUM part 6 - 'Corruption'

Cassie and Tim try to hold off Kara while Natasha and Catwoman go for help. Wonder Woman finally gets her hands on Circe, and Lex and Ares meet on the field of battle... man to man.

( entire cast listing behind cut )

But in case you didn't follow the cut, let me repeat:
Directed by R. Francis Smith

Thanks to spiralsequin for her help on this one and her mentoring all along, and see y'all next month for another excited post when my first totally solo directing AND first acting gig turn up. :)



http://www.pendantaudio.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pendant

Thanks for listening!

In response to my post on jerk chicken, I got LJ comment spam advertising a site which sends e-greetings to jerks.

You keep using that word. I do not think I mean what you think I mean.

Their automated comment bot? Not so much with the nuance.

If you add corn starch to the water before you boil the Top Ramen, it is amazing and soupy and yum.

From The NYTimes:

Pickens is betting $10 billion in constructing what he says will be the world’s largest wind farm in the gusts of West Texas. If the mighty winds of the American midsection were harnessed, it could free up plentiful natural gas for vehicles — a relatively quick step away from foreign oil.

Would it enrich him further? Yes. But perhaps it’s not about money. In “Chinatown,” the old man played by [John] Huston was asked by Detective Jake Gittes what more he could possibly buy at his age.

“The future, Mr. Gittes. The future.”

But before T. Boone poses for his statue, he has to answer to his past. Pickens was the moneybags, to the tune of $3 million, behind the Swift Boat attacks that made Senator Kerry’s honorable service in Vietnam sound like Rambo tangled up in lies. He even promised to pay $1 million to anyone who could challenge the veracity of the claims.

After a group of veterans presented him with documents identifying 10 lies of the Swifties, Pickens broke his promise. The vets misunderstood the precise details of the $1 million offer, he said last month. Sorry, but thanks for your service, boys!

The old-fashioned term for this is welshing on a bet, which dishonors Wales.

[...]

No doubt, the Pickens plan makes sense. Just last week, Texas state officials gave preliminary approval to the biggest investment in clean energy in American history, backing a $4.9 billion plan to build transmission lines for wind energy.

Meanwhile, looking bravely to the past, Bush and McCain are trying to convince us that more oil drilling will save us from $5-a-gallon gas. History says otherwise. The number of oil and gas permits on federal land doubled in the last five years, with no effect on price or supply. And Bush’s own Energy Information Administration says increased drilling wouldn’t move the market in the short term.

McCain knows this, despite the brazen lie in his Obama gas ad. He now says drilling offshore would have “a psychological impact.” Just like that “mental recession” his former chief economic adviser Phil Gramm spoke of. These guys need to get off the couch.

Originally published at Ready, Fire, Aim!. Please leave any comments there.

It took us a little while to get back in the groove, but once we did, ( things ticked over nicely. )

From a mechanical standpoint, we got the game to work by doing ( the following )

Today I ordered some UPF protective gear from Athleta. They had some great sale items. I ordered 1 tankini and short which aren't UPF so I can wear them in the hot tub OW!!

I also ordered a UPF protected swimdress with hood and Cargo pants for the beach.
Next I need to get a huge ass beach umbrella. If I come home with a tan you know I've failed. Of course I'm also going in October so sun exposure will be a little less than in the summertime.

While I'm talking about beaches it makes me think of the evil ocean. One thing I didn't consider about our choice of 47 inch hdtv is shark week!!! I've had to run into the kitchen twice today to get away from the shark on the screen. That can get tiring! I used to be able to watch sharks on the little tv just fine but the verdict is still out on the big tv. Silly phobias.

It's been a while, so why not an outdoor-cat update?

In the summer, the outdoor cats are more scarce. They have plentiful other food sources, the weather is of course much better, so they range farther afield and rely less and less on the food we put out. Also, they are most active at night and at dawn and dusk, and during the period of long days the "dawn" is hours before I get out there with food, so there are some mornings where hardly any cats show up at all. Rare is the day, though, when none of them are around.

Extra, the third cat to show up after the original duo of River and Simon, had been gone for months. I worried a little, but when you are care-taking a feral colony you learn not to do that too much. There was no way of knowing what - if anything - had happened, and they do come and go. It's hard, being a hardcore cat lover and seeing those guys out there day in and day out, sometimes skinnier, sometimes fatter, sometimes dirtier, sometimes cleaner, sometimes having just been in a fight...you know it's never an easy life. For me, I had to get a distance on them; I care for the outdoor guys very much, but they aren't my pets and it's not fair (to me or to them) to treat them as such. All this in mind, I was still really happy last weekend when all of a sudden...Extra was back! He was a little shy at first, but he quickly remembered who I was, and let me pet him again.

Every morning this week, sure enough, Extra's been out there for some kibble or a bit of the canned stuff. The other cats seem to remember him well enough, or at least not to mind him being around. I have to wonder if there was some kind of power struggle. A recent addition to the colony, Buttercup (look, I have to keep my emotions at a certain distance, but there was no way I was not going to name them; yes, even if it means some of them wind up with stupid names!), has turned out to be a real bruiser. Not that I've seen direct evidence but all signs point to him being an unneutered male, and therefore his aggression is not that surprising. I can't say for sure if Buttercup's arrival and Extra's departure coincided, but it would make sense. If that's the case, though, I wonder what prompted Extra's return (and possible battle to do so)?

Yesterday when I got home I happened to see Buttercup sitting on the curb where I usually feed them, though there was no food left. He looked a little forlorn (yes, I realize I'm projecting here!), and it was odd to see one of them out in broad daylight like that. Perhaps they have arranged a sort of time-share, and Buttercup got stuck with the afternoons? He also had a wound on his ear; it didn't look serious but only serves as possible evidence bolstering some of my theories.

And at last, of course, there is Little Dude. I shouldn't play favorites, but Little Dude is so awesome. He was just a kitten when he first showed up (hence his terrible name), and he's come so far, from being the most shy of humans to being a purring, meowing love machine. As an example: Yesterday morning when I left the building, another person left at the same time. In addition, the lady who lives on the 4th floor who feeds spoiled little River at a different location from all the other cats (guess we all play favorites, hunh?) was out there too. Who should come dashing right between them, ignoring the stranger and the lady with food to dash right for my ankles, meowing all the way? Why, Little Dude, of course! He loves me!

Yes, it's likely that he prefers the canned stuff I have to the dry stuff. Let me have my illusions, yeah?

Anyway, so to the best of my ability to report, the outdoor cats are doing fine and dandy. I emailed the Rude Ranch the other day about him, because they do feral cat "rehab" there. I would love to see Little Dude get into a shelter somewhere. I think that he is a real candidate for eventually being a pet, if someone takes the time to work with him and get him really acclimated to humans and an indoor environment. Unfortunately, I don't have the room or the time (not to mention how much Oz and Desmond would hate it!). Hopefully I'll hear something from them soon.

My SG on Champion is populated by players who don't play very often. And I haven't poked my head in for a while. It looks like we finally have enough prestige to put in a bunch of porter pads (we currently have Striga an Talos or IP).

I was able to stick in three tp rooms that can hold 2 pads each; these three rooms are close together. I was also able to create one isolated tiny tp room that can hold 1 pad.

We're probably not going to break level 40 for a while. Some are at or near 30. Given that most of us have Pocket D, and those of us 25+ have the Ouro portal, what zones should we attach to our pads? I love Katie, so I want Croatoa. And ITF is made of win; I'm a little unclear what the deal with that is -- I need to look into that Pillar of Flame bit for Cimerora.

Is it possible to get a pad for Ouroboros?

I'm not sure how often we'll do respecs.

We do like to do TFs.

We have a med room of some sort. If it is possible, I wonder if it makes sense to change it into a tp room instead.

Here's the Reuters link.

http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSSP8007520080724

Not particularly whelmed over by their claims of global physics engines and busses thrown across town that you have to dodge if you're in the target zone.

So I'm sitting here sporting a red fiberglass bandage on my left wrist, the leftovers from a portable IV unit that was attached to me this morning because ... I had to have a radioactive isotope injected. Twice. Consider me not so thrilled since I'd expected an old fashioned stress test, not a *nuclear* stress test (this one, apparently: Multiple gated acquisition (MUGA) scan). o.O

And, according to the technician, it won't even make me glow in the dark or gain nifty superpowers since it "eats itself in two days." Great, so at least the half life is only a day, but still not how I'd planned on spending my morning.

Thank heavens I had this done before August 1, when United will start charging even the POS plan a deductible, because, much like CAT Scans, I bet this isn't covered (which should be fun, next year when I get to do it again).

First off, congratulations to Cindy, who passed her big exam!

( I would like to linger here in silence )