Another Big Random Post
Jul. 10th, 2006 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6Yep, one of those again...
Had some weird Battle Royale-esque dream last night. Don't remember all the details, just that it involved time travelled back to the end of the 'game' to try and change the outcome (save one of the people who died) but winding up getting in more danger because of the attempt because the people who ran the game were monitoring it.
I kinda wanna read this book: An Introduction to Planetary Defense
Social interaction report: Nothing really of note to report.
Couple more social interactions, but I was fairly withdrawn and reserved in them and didn't say much. Can't really say why, seems to travel in waves.
Some hidden icons!
Meme! Interview meme.
Interviewed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tadiera...
1. Do you watch porn? (Hey, it said personal questions!)
Well, it depends on a bit of how you parse the question. I have seen porn. Hell, what with spam and such I'm exposed to porn almost every day. And when it's right in front of me I'll glance at it occasionally. But I've never bought or rented porn, and I'd say I don't typically 'watch porn' in the sense of going out and deliberately looking for porn to watch.
2. What is your longest-running fandom?
Hmmm.. again, depending a bit on how you interpret the question (what counts as it being my 'fandom'... just watching the show/whatever, or actively being involved in discussions), the oldest things I recall being fannish about were: Star Trek (starting with the Next Generation particularly... I'd seen older ones but have no particular memory of them), Dragonlance, and Comics. Since I've stopped caring about any Star Trek after DS9 ended, and haven't read a Dragonlance book in something like 10 years, I'd guess comics would probably count as 'longest running' by default. Particularly Marvel, and more particularly X-Men (though also New Universe and Power Pack, which I probably loved more at the time).
3. Have you ever been to a convention?
Yeah. Three, actually. One was when I was like 13 or 14 I think, and it was a Star Trek convention, I just wanted to go to one out of curiosity. My Dad took me.
Another one, also in my early teens was an RPG convention I wanted to look at, but we didn't spend too long. Luckily, we somehow (completely accidentally, by getting lost and going in the wrong direction) bypassed the ticket line and didn't pay to enter like we were supposed to. But I just looked through the dealers area a bit and looked for supplements I hadn't gotten (I think I picked up a Paranoia source book for Post-Computer-Crash), briefly hovered around the gaming area before deciding I couldn't figure out how to ask anyone if I could join, and then left. Probably about 20 minutes there all in all, so good thing we didn't pay.
Finally, about 2 years ago I went to Canadian Expo (or whatever it's called all in one), it's several conventions all jammed into one, each with different names but all in the same place and, while you're there, indistinguishable from one another. There's Comic Expo, SF Expo, Anime North, Festival of Fear for Horror fans, etc. Anyway, I went to one of those about 2 years ago, mainly to attend a Cup of Joe panel for Marvel comics, and also to see what one was like. I saw, but didn't talk to, a bunch of celebrities, including the actors who played Darla and Jenny Calender on Buffy/Angel, and I was actually within spitting distance of George Takei (Sulu). Had a headache so only stayed a few hours.
I might go to the same convention this year. Morena Baccarin (Inara) will be there this year, among a few others (the guy who plays Carson Beckett in SGA, couple others I can't remember and I'm too lazy to look it up). All depends on how my finances look when it rolls around (there are some worry spots) and my general sociability-mood-rating as the day rolls near, and whether I feel like dealing with people. If I do go, though, I'm wearing my Blue Sun shirt.
4. Do you think you'll ever move away from Toronto?
I don't see it happening in the near future. Most of my family's here, and that's important to me. If that changed somehow, I might, but the social issues involved in just completely picking up and moving are a bit vexing, so probably not unless I had some compelling reason. Of course, eventually if my immediate family died or my life got really sucky in too many new ways, I hope to get rid of almost everything I own and just walk across the country and wander until I die or find something somewhere that inspires me to stay.
5. If it could be planned in a perfectly safe setting, would you meet me?
Ehhh, depends. Something inside me really abhors the idea of 'meeting someone' cold. Couple bad experiences along that line probably in part causing it (nothing horrificly traumatic or anything, just more along the lines of 'it was really awkward and we basically barely talked to each other online again after meeting in person')
But oddly it's not the meeting itself that bothers me as much as the 'going out of my way' does. Maybe I'm just too much a creature of routine. But I would have much less trouble meeting someone if, say, I was going somewhere and you were going to be there anyway and it wouldn't be much out of my way to meet someone. That way if it doesn't go well, it's much more easy to write off, mentally, as 'something that happened while I was going about my day', rather than 'a meeting that did not work out well'.
I suspect another part of it is because if I go out of my way to meet someone then I tend to have to explain to others. Someone in my family will notice that I went out on something out of my routine, and I don't want to lie or be rude but I also don't really want them to know, because if they knew I'd be meeting someone they'd ask follow up questions and I really don't want to deal with it.
My mind is a minefield and should not be ventured into by the unwary.
Instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I respond by asking you five questions of a very intimate and creepily personal nature. Or not so creepy/personal. (Probably not, in my case)
3. You update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
Book Foo:
Finished: The Year's Best SF 10
Started: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (reread)
Non-spoilery thoughts (except for thumbnail plot sketches of a few of the short stories I liked, but no big plot spoilers) beyond the cut.
A couple good stories in the YBSF collection, but most of them kinda left me flat, or had/inspired some really cool ideas but the stories themselves weren't what I hoped. But hell, I got it for $1, so I can't complain. I think my favorite in the collection was: "Burning Day," by Glenn Grant, about two cops investigating some terrorist crimes against 'cogents' (robotic AIs that are growing in world influence).
It hits on one of my interest points, AI rights and their effect on society.
Also enjoyable was "Sergeant Chip", by Bradley Denton about a dog with enhanced intelligence in the army, "The Algorithms for Love" by Ken Liu about the creator of an AI doll's uncomfortable discoveries about the nature of intelligence, "The Eckner Alternative" about someone attempting to alter history for a particularly trivial reason, and "Time, as it Evaporates" about a small Muslim village that survives a cataclysm that destroys time itself, except for small pools of it like the one around their homes, that is slowly evaporating (one of those 'cool ideas but the story didn't as much for me as the imagery and coolness of the concept').
Ender's Game, well, what can I say about that that I haven't already, considering I must have read it like 12-15 times already. I find it interesting, a lot of times I sort of read for content, and I don't really hear a voice in my head, Ender's Game I read slower and it's almost like, inside my head, I'm reading it to another person. Specifically, I think I'm reading it to my children, even though I don't have any and am unlikely ever to. Not that it's a children's book by any means, but I think it's the type of book I'd read to my kids at some point, if I was not unlikely to take a mate. I suspect if they were anything like me the story would resonate.
And I think that's it for now.
Edit: Oh yeah, one more thing for the old XET guard on the list. I added a couple more undone plots I'd completely forgotten about to the last XET Diaries post.
Had some weird Battle Royale-esque dream last night. Don't remember all the details, just that it involved time travelled back to the end of the 'game' to try and change the outcome (save one of the people who died) but winding up getting in more danger because of the attempt because the people who ran the game were monitoring it.
I kinda wanna read this book: An Introduction to Planetary Defense
Social interaction report: Nothing really of note to report.
Couple more social interactions, but I was fairly withdrawn and reserved in them and didn't say much. Can't really say why, seems to travel in waves.
Some hidden icons!
Meme! Interview meme.
Interviewed by
tadiera...1. Do you watch porn? (Hey, it said personal questions!)
Well, it depends on a bit of how you parse the question. I have seen porn. Hell, what with spam and such I'm exposed to porn almost every day. And when it's right in front of me I'll glance at it occasionally. But I've never bought or rented porn, and I'd say I don't typically 'watch porn' in the sense of going out and deliberately looking for porn to watch.
2. What is your longest-running fandom?
Hmmm.. again, depending a bit on how you interpret the question (what counts as it being my 'fandom'... just watching the show/whatever, or actively being involved in discussions), the oldest things I recall being fannish about were: Star Trek (starting with the Next Generation particularly... I'd seen older ones but have no particular memory of them), Dragonlance, and Comics. Since I've stopped caring about any Star Trek after DS9 ended, and haven't read a Dragonlance book in something like 10 years, I'd guess comics would probably count as 'longest running' by default. Particularly Marvel, and more particularly X-Men (though also New Universe and Power Pack, which I probably loved more at the time).
3. Have you ever been to a convention?
Yeah. Three, actually. One was when I was like 13 or 14 I think, and it was a Star Trek convention, I just wanted to go to one out of curiosity. My Dad took me.
Another one, also in my early teens was an RPG convention I wanted to look at, but we didn't spend too long. Luckily, we somehow (completely accidentally, by getting lost and going in the wrong direction) bypassed the ticket line and didn't pay to enter like we were supposed to. But I just looked through the dealers area a bit and looked for supplements I hadn't gotten (I think I picked up a Paranoia source book for Post-Computer-Crash), briefly hovered around the gaming area before deciding I couldn't figure out how to ask anyone if I could join, and then left. Probably about 20 minutes there all in all, so good thing we didn't pay.
Finally, about 2 years ago I went to Canadian Expo (or whatever it's called all in one), it's several conventions all jammed into one, each with different names but all in the same place and, while you're there, indistinguishable from one another. There's Comic Expo, SF Expo, Anime North, Festival of Fear for Horror fans, etc. Anyway, I went to one of those about 2 years ago, mainly to attend a Cup of Joe panel for Marvel comics, and also to see what one was like. I saw, but didn't talk to, a bunch of celebrities, including the actors who played Darla and Jenny Calender on Buffy/Angel, and I was actually within spitting distance of George Takei (Sulu). Had a headache so only stayed a few hours.
I might go to the same convention this year. Morena Baccarin (Inara) will be there this year, among a few others (the guy who plays Carson Beckett in SGA, couple others I can't remember and I'm too lazy to look it up). All depends on how my finances look when it rolls around (there are some worry spots) and my general sociability-mood-rating as the day rolls near, and whether I feel like dealing with people. If I do go, though, I'm wearing my Blue Sun shirt.
4. Do you think you'll ever move away from Toronto?
I don't see it happening in the near future. Most of my family's here, and that's important to me. If that changed somehow, I might, but the social issues involved in just completely picking up and moving are a bit vexing, so probably not unless I had some compelling reason. Of course, eventually if my immediate family died or my life got really sucky in too many new ways, I hope to get rid of almost everything I own and just walk across the country and wander until I die or find something somewhere that inspires me to stay.
5. If it could be planned in a perfectly safe setting, would you meet me?
Ehhh, depends. Something inside me really abhors the idea of 'meeting someone' cold. Couple bad experiences along that line probably in part causing it (nothing horrificly traumatic or anything, just more along the lines of 'it was really awkward and we basically barely talked to each other online again after meeting in person')
But oddly it's not the meeting itself that bothers me as much as the 'going out of my way' does. Maybe I'm just too much a creature of routine. But I would have much less trouble meeting someone if, say, I was going somewhere and you were going to be there anyway and it wouldn't be much out of my way to meet someone. That way if it doesn't go well, it's much more easy to write off, mentally, as 'something that happened while I was going about my day', rather than 'a meeting that did not work out well'.
I suspect another part of it is because if I go out of my way to meet someone then I tend to have to explain to others. Someone in my family will notice that I went out on something out of my routine, and I don't want to lie or be rude but I also don't really want them to know, because if they knew I'd be meeting someone they'd ask follow up questions and I really don't want to deal with it.
My mind is a minefield and should not be ventured into by the unwary.
Instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I respond by asking you five questions of a very intimate and creepily personal nature. Or not so creepy/personal. (Probably not, in my case)
3. You update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
Book Foo:
Finished: The Year's Best SF 10
Started: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (reread)
Non-spoilery thoughts (except for thumbnail plot sketches of a few of the short stories I liked, but no big plot spoilers) beyond the cut.
A couple good stories in the YBSF collection, but most of them kinda left me flat, or had/inspired some really cool ideas but the stories themselves weren't what I hoped. But hell, I got it for $1, so I can't complain. I think my favorite in the collection was: "Burning Day," by Glenn Grant, about two cops investigating some terrorist crimes against 'cogents' (robotic AIs that are growing in world influence).
It hits on one of my interest points, AI rights and their effect on society.
Also enjoyable was "Sergeant Chip", by Bradley Denton about a dog with enhanced intelligence in the army, "The Algorithms for Love" by Ken Liu about the creator of an AI doll's uncomfortable discoveries about the nature of intelligence, "The Eckner Alternative" about someone attempting to alter history for a particularly trivial reason, and "Time, as it Evaporates" about a small Muslim village that survives a cataclysm that destroys time itself, except for small pools of it like the one around their homes, that is slowly evaporating (one of those 'cool ideas but the story didn't as much for me as the imagery and coolness of the concept').
Ender's Game, well, what can I say about that that I haven't already, considering I must have read it like 12-15 times already. I find it interesting, a lot of times I sort of read for content, and I don't really hear a voice in my head, Ender's Game I read slower and it's almost like, inside my head, I'm reading it to another person. Specifically, I think I'm reading it to my children, even though I don't have any and am unlikely ever to. Not that it's a children's book by any means, but I think it's the type of book I'd read to my kids at some point, if I was not unlikely to take a mate. I suspect if they were anything like me the story would resonate.
And I think that's it for now.
Edit: Oh yeah, one more thing for the old XET guard on the list. I added a couple more undone plots I'd completely forgotten about to the last XET Diaries post.
