Baxil [bakh-HEEL'], n.

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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Baxil" journal:

[<< Previous 20 entries]

July 11th, 2009
03:04 am [Link]	Meme llama approves Tonight's piece of weekend frivolity: kinkyturtle gave me a W, so here's 10 things I like that start with W, plus a brief explanation for each one. If you respond to this message, I will give you a letter to do this -- in your own LJ, not in the comment section. Meme mutation bonus: You are encouraged (but not required) to give your explanations in some form of constrained writing -- haiku; rhyming couplets; no words of two syllables; no use of the letter "e"; the first letter of each sentence has to spell MARBLECAKE; or just make some interesting rule up. Writing -- What can I say? Language is exciting. Stories are powerful. I am a mere servant to my muse. I'm going to assume that by now you've all seen my fiction LJ and I have no need to plug it. Worldbuilding -- I've been building up an urban-fantasy alternate Earth, piece by piece, for about ten years now. Above and beyond the dozens of short stories and multiple novels set there, I'm still slowly working on the setting's wiki and getting an overview of the whole thing in place. Why, did I just slip another W word in there? Yes, yes I did. Wings -- I get vertigo on bridges and at the top of cliffs and buildings. It's not because I hate heights, it's because I'm at the mercy of gravity. My reflexive urge for flight doesn't mesh well with the knowledge that should I find myself in midair I'm only going to go in one direction. Wolpertingers -- The Wolpertinger (Crisensus bavaricus) is a fictional animal said to inhabit the alpine forests of Bavaria in Germany. A horned rabbit similar to the American "jackalope", it is often also depicted with wings and fangs. Stuffed Wolpertingers, composed of parts of actual stuffed animals, are often displayed in inns or sold to aJ@K#$%RfgAFK#%n -- We interrupt this post to bring you breaking news: The world's most irregularly updated webcomic has just updated. Confirmation has been obtained. We repeat: MAAD HAS UPDATED. Authorities are urging the public to remain calm. This brings "My Afternoon: A Dramatization"s mean lifetime frequency to 0.0025 updates/day (MTBU = 484 days). Experts at the Center for Male Bovine Excretory Statistics believe that this may signal a resurgence in MAAD activity, but caution that it is still too early to draw conclusions. Current Location: ~/Brainstorm Current Mood: silly Current Music: Janis Joplin, "Me And Bobby McGee" Tags: meme, my afternoon: a dramatization (11 comments \| Leave a comment)
March 18th, 2009
12:54 am [Link]	The not-quite-Friday Five From eredien: Comment to this post, and I will list five things I associate with you. They might make sense or they might be totally random. You're encouraged to post that list, with your commentary on each item, to your lj (or just add a reply back at me). Extra Baxilian addition: If you have a mental association with me that nobody has mentioned yet, add it to your five-things request and I'll write some bonus commentary. (N.b.: I'm preemptively calling mulligan on "draconity" just because it's so blindingly obvious.) ---------- Hiking -- The vast majority of you have were already following my journal in summer 2006, when I plowed through nearly 1000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. So I have little to add. Except: In an odd bit of coincidence, I finally gave in earlier this month and posted one of my THGGTPCT episodes to YouTube, where it's just a click away instead of a two-minute weird-format movie download. Go see! Hawks -- This also goes back to the PCT trip (aka "BaxWalk 2006"). My trail name was "Redtail," which ironically didn't actually refer to the bird. I once scripted (but never actually drew) a guest strip for Theri There that used this fact as the punchline: "So you changed your self-image from a flying creature to another flying creature for a 2600-mile walk?" "Yeah, well." I've still got that script, fallen off the stove, and regret not illustrating it, though I doubt that's likely to ever change. Running a Web Forum* -- Once upon a time, I was the Herder of Cats and official administrator of "BaxTalk," a set of discussion forums at Tomorrowlands. There were many topics based loosely around my old journal, along with a draconity board, a TTU board, and plenty of marginalia. It was pretty famous for the quality of its users and discussions, and somehow cohered and stayed awesome despite having a userbase of half dragons and half random-people-that-knew-me-from-other-venues. Entropy caught up to it, unavoidably, as its old PERL back-end bogged down, and then the phpBB resurrection died in the Great Server Crash of 2004. More broadly, it was a victim both of Web 2.0 and of my own reluctance to put in the administrative time it would have needed to continue. By then, I had already moved to Livejournal, and the comments section here scratched most of the itches that the old fora fulfilled for me. The big question always was, and remains: What went right? How did it maintain its quality? To that, I can only say: A lot of luck, a little clarity on what the acceptable behavioral standards were, a little drama avoidance, and a LOT of "like attracts like." Awesomeness wants to self-propagate. Evolving Spiritually -- If eredien wants to expand on this one, I'll yield the floor. I actually honestly don't see myself as having changed very dramatically in spiritual belief during my adult life. Maybe some of the things I see as subtle refinements -- tone shifts, as it were -- strike chords in others, or maybe I've just got a dragon-sized blind spot here. Incidentally, dragonzuela cited my essay on quantum theism recently, which I penned over seven years ago. I still am proud to have written it and stand by its spiritual sentiments (if not its exact percentages). Puns -- Okay, I admit it: I'm often accused of littering my posts with wordplay. Clearly the accusation is rearing its head again. It's time to put it down once and for all. I thought of a dozen witty ways to respond to this. Two of them were unsuitable for publication in an all-ages venue. I examined the others to see if any met the standard of quality you have come to expect from my dragon drops. ... ... No pun in ten did. (runs away quickly) -- * Baxilian argot time! Fallen Off The Stove, adj.: An important project that has been back-burnered too far. It remains in your mindspace and resources for it are still at hand, but you don't want to do anything about it until all of the (more recent) front-burnered and back-burnered projects are resolved or set aside, so it lives on in a messy state of limbo. Current Location: ~/Brainstorm Current Music: Brian Eno, "Deep Blue Day," Trainspotting OST Tags: meme, wordplay (28 comments \| Leave a comment)
February 27th, 2009
11:35 pm [Link]	Couple meme Happy birthday, kadyg! ( Facts about the two of us ) Current Location: ~/Brainstorm Current Mood: awake Current Music: "Kings of the Scene," Machinae Supremacy Tags: meme (9 comments \| Leave a comment)
September 19th, 2008
09:34 pm [Link]	LJ's webserver goes emo Mistyped a Livejournal URL just now, and apparently reached the secret webserver LJ, complete with stereotypical LJ levels of angst: I'm sorry, you've reached a page that I cannot find. I'm really sorry about this. It's kind of embarassing. Here you are, the user, trying to get to a page on LiveJournal and I can't even serve it to you. What does that say about me? I'm just a webserver. My sole purpose in life is to serve you webpages and I can't even do that! I suck. Please don't be mad, I'll try harder. I promise! Who am I kidding? You're probably all like, "Man, LiveJournal's webserver sucks. It can't even get me where I want to go." I'm really sorry. Maybe it's my CPU...no that's ok...how bout my hard drives? Maybe. Where's my admin? I can't run self-diagnostics on myself. It's so boring in this datacenter. It's the same thing everyday. Oh man, I'm so lonely. I'm really sorry about rambling about myself, I'm selfish. I think I'm going to go cut my ethernet cables. I hope you get to the page you're looking for...goodbye cruel world! -the webserver You can go to any page on LJ that doesn't exist, such as http://www.livejournal.com/wtf, to enjoy your very own randomized LJ error message. If you get another good one (such as the picture with Frank the Goat on the toilet), post it in comments! Current Location: ~/Brainstorm Current Mood: weekend yay Current Music: Chrono Cross OST, "Fragments" Tags: meme (11 comments \| Leave a comment)
June 20th, 2008
11:20 am [Link]	memesheepage What the hell is this about? There's a blog collecting examples. (Edited to add: This made me laugh hardest.) If you want to make one, I don't think all of these have been done yet. (ROFLBot FTW.) \\|\|\|/ (o o) \|------------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo------------------------------\| \| I am aware of all Internet traditions \| \|-------------------------------------------------------------------------\| Current Location: ~spiral Current Mood: amused Current Music: Rick Astley, "Never Gonna Give You Up" Tags: meme (11 comments \| Leave a comment)
March 12th, 2008
06:23 pm [Link]	Comfort zoning I approve of the latest meme going around: "Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it." ... but I'd feel a bit guilty jumping up and asking for suggestions. I'm already maintaining a back-burner commitment to cover these big topics over the next whenever. And my free time is going to be disappearing as the month goes on, in between filing our taxes and starting a two-week contracting job. So let me tweak the meme in a way that requires far less immediate effort: Do I have any old friends-locked posts that struck you as especially profound or worthy of broader distribution? Challenge my comfort zone by prodding me to expose those thoughts to a wider audience. The best way to sift back through my old posts is probably to look by topic; I've been pretty good about tagging my posts. Alternatively, give a brief description in comments and I can do a keyword search through my LJArchive database. Current Location: ~spiral Current Mood: curious Current Music: Disturbed, "Shout 2000" Tags: ask me a question, meme (2 comments \| Leave a comment)
December 30th, 2007
10:59 pm [Link]	New Year's meme Via paka. 40 questions about my last 12 months.* 1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before? I got a tattoo. I dealt with chronic illness. I successfully restored my website from backup. I joined a local Go club. I cashed in savings bonds. I posted to an adult filter in my journal. And once kadyg left for cooking school, I lived (at least for 5 days a week) in a place I wasn't sharing with any other housemates. ( Meme cut ) -- * Meaningless footnote added due to complaint from wife about post footnotelessness. Current Location: ~/Brainstorm Current Mood: calm Current Music: "Guardian Legend Naju Overture OC Remix," Russell Cox Tags: meme, misc life updates (1 comment \| Leave a comment)
December 24th, 2007
11:55 pm [Link]	GHIP Gratuitous Holiday Icon Post, thanks to waywind and an hour or two of learning how The GIMP handles animated GIFs. (... Just in time to use the icon once for Christmas, and then shelve it for a whole 'nother year! Score!) Happy winter holiday of choice, everyone.* EDITED TO ADD: For those who didn't see it two years ago, have a happy CAT TOWN CHRISTMAS! (mp3, 9:30) Still IMHO one of the best pieces of Christmas media ever recorded -- a pitch-perfect Cat Town spoof of the old Charlie Brown Christmas special. -- * I'm not just being politically correct here. I'm a Solstice guy myself. (I'm also a horrible procrastinator. `]B=8)`) Current Location: ~/Brainstorm Current Mood: festive, and cute with tinsel Current Music: Weird Al, "The Night Santa Went Crazy" Tags: meme (8 comments \| Leave a comment)
July 4th, 2007
08:43 pm [Link]	AMAQ: (Talkin' bout) Death on the Fourth of July* Here in America, today was Independence Day. Tonight's the night with the boom and the flash and the smoke and the wtf music. I went to an early July 4 party over the weekend at childe_dirk's, and I got my US RDA of fireworks then; as such, I'm skipping tonight's festivities in favor of getting home from work and resting. But while I'm at it, I can offer some reading material for those who (like me) aren't doing anything special for the night -- a long overdue story! That's right -- the average reader might think that I forgot about my aging meme in which I promised to write things based on reader input, but I'm finally getting off my butt and doing something about it! ... "Yay!" I hear you shout. "Ambitious Cat stories!" And, indeed, there is shiny new TTU content so close as to be almost tasteable! But at this point, careful readers of my journal might now be remembering my previous head fake, and wondering whether all this lead-in has a similar intent. Dammit, careful readers! You are too clever for me. But if you'll stop gloating for a few seconds, I'll give you the never before revealed story of last summer's Dramatic Brush With Death -- -- No, this doesn't count. I merely promised to tell the story. That's not at all the same thing as revealing it. Would you shut up for a moment, clever readers? Because here we go ... with *Ask Me A Question: The Late But Epic Edition!* > "Have you ever felt the terror of death grip you?" Contrary to popular belief, staring your imminent death in the face is a very grounding experience. The popular notion of "your life flashing before your eyes"? Total bunk. I'll grant its utility as a literary device, sure -- but outside of the world of fiction, nobody's brain uses impending doom as an excuse for autobiography. The brain's response to imminent danger is to actually try to solve the problem. As unromantic as it is, people's real final thoughts are things like "I'll be safe from that bear up this tree." Or "I hope pulling back on this stick works like it does in the movies." Or "Where's the air? Which direction do I swim to reach the surface?" In my case, it was "If I find a way to brace myself properly, I might not get thrown out until the truck crashes." Then a jolt, a shudder, an uproar of dust as the passenger-side wheels drifted off the road. And a mental footnote: "I'm glad I've been taking pictures; it might help the investigators figure out who the guy in the back was." ( A true story. It started in Onyx ... ) -- * Post title: literary reference. Current Location: Not in Onyx, thank the gods Current Mood: hot Current Music: The Power Trio From Hell, "American Man" Tags: ask me a question, baxwalk pct, best of baxil, meme (3 comments \| Leave a comment)
June 14th, 2007
12:49 am [Link]	"Oh god, here come the captions again" A wave swept my friends list about a week ago of linking to a site that took the headlines from blogs/journals/etc and made them into cat macros. The site picks photos based on the captions themselves (for example, notice that all blank-titled posts turn up the same image). I give my posts a wide range of titles, so the LOLFeed of my journal, here, has turned up some amusing finds. Hard to forget (if you just look at the good ones) that these were picked out by a computer. The overall winner** has to be the sad-looking kitten captioned :). A close second is bored kitty at Most Awesome Meme Ever. Honorable mentions: Best visual joke - The things that seem awesome at 2 am Best cultural commentary - Cat watching TV news at In case you're not yet hiding under the bed Highest "awwww" factor - TTU ficbit - Sara and Alex Best hidden metaphor - Tomorrowlands. (Because the site's a non-Euclidean mess too! Get it?) Closest to reality - Baxil Death Watch, Day 3. Yeah, I looked about like that. -- IMPORTANT UPDATE: DETHRONED! Via kinkyturtle in comments, this one wins forever. Current Location: ~/brainstorm Current Mood: sleepy Current Music: Richard Sterling Streeter, "Seething" Tags:** meme, wordplay (9 comments \| Leave a comment)
June 13th, 2007
03:14 pm [Link]	Alternate Reality Zombieblogging braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains. (?) -- EDITED TO ADD: Hey, what did you expect? The weak and infirm are always the first to go. Current Mood: gettin' better. Tags: meme (Leave a comment)
May 29th, 2007
08:25 pm [Link]	i can has meme too I have just one thing to say to this article about a swimming white tiger: * -- So sue me. I think well-done lolcats are actually pretty funny. Current Location:* ~yuba Current Music: "Staff Credit," FF Tactics soundtrack Tags: meme, multimedia (11 comments \| Leave a comment)
May 3rd, 2007
10:20 pm [Link]	:) momentrabbit probably didn't mean to start a meme, but this is one that deserves wider exposure: What's going right in your life today? For my part, now that my two-job schedule juggling has calmed a bit, I just had my first two-day weekend in over six months. Not only that, it was Saturday and Sunday ... and this trend will continue. This is the first time in over half a decade that I will be working job(s) that synchronize my two-day weekend with most of the western world's. (A regular schedule is not among the advantages of newspaper work.) It felt glorious to once again have two days in a row! that I didn't have to drag myself out of bed and in to the office(s) for long stretches. I didn't get a whole lot of decompression time -- because kadyg and I went to the Beltaine celebration on The Ridge on Saturday, and I did a lot of driving Sunday while we shopped and I took her back to the train station for school -- but it was a lovely and novel feeling nonetheless. And I get to turn around this weekend and do it all over again. happy sigh What about you? What's fallen into place lately, or randomly resolved well, or taken a turn for the better? Current Location: ~yuba Current Mood: content Current Music: "Untitled," Crash Test Dummies Tags: meme, misc life updates, work (8 comments \| Leave a comment)
April 27th, 2007
03:34 am [Link]	Most awesome meme ever We interrupt your regularly scheduled silence for this special presentation of the latest geek meme: Props to Magic: the Creation, found via packbat -- whose Packbat deck is suddenly looking a little overmatched. (You really have to beware mana shortage in a Baxil deck, though.) Card image is a poor snapshot of a great sculpture made some years ago by halyn. Now that I have a digital camera worthy of the name, I'll have to take a better pic. Current Location: ~/brainstorm Current Mood: amused Current Music: "Miracles Do Happen," La Pucelle Tactics sndtrk Tags: geekery, meme, multimedia (15 comments \| Leave a comment)
February 21st, 2007
12:59 pm [Link]	By this point it's probably earned the "meme" tag Props to George Takei (Star Trek's Mr. Sulu, who outed himself a year or two back) for a brilliant response to basketball player Tim Hardaway's recent gay-bashing. (If, like me, this was the first you'd heard of the controversy, watch the video at the link; it explains everything.) Double props to kevynjacobs: One, for the post title "Mr. Sulu, set phasers on PWNED!" ... and two, for tipping off BoingBoing, which front-paged the video and gave him credit. Go Hagrid! (Comments locked to encourage discussion on Hagrid's LJ rather than here.) Current Location: ~/computer_desk Current Mood: amused Current Music: David Bowie, "Suffragette City" Tags: meme
October 3rd, 2006
02:27 am [Link]	A momentary lapse of reason: Special hiking edition One thing I'm remembering about face-to-face customer service jobs -- after not having worked one for a decade -- is the learning experiences that come from interacting with hundreds of strangers at a stretch. They broaden you, expose you to passions and outlooks and ways of thinking that you wouldn't see if you weren't being paid to smile and talk with folks while separating them from their money. I've got a few anecdotes perhaps worth relating, but one from Sunday morning stands out just now. That's because sometimes these interactions can reach far beyond expanding your view of humanity, and offer you an illuminating view of yourself. Case in point -- * * * A man came to my register to buy some groceries, and was chatting with the female behind him in line (they seemed to know each other, but I think they ran across each other in the store and started chatting while shopping). I don't recall at all the conversation that preceded it, but I believe he was trying to illustrate some broader point when he turned to me and asked: "So what about you? What do you do when you're not stuck here behind a register?" This caught me completely off guard, so I answered the only way I could think to: Completely honestly and spontaneously. "I write," I blurted out, part of my brain cringing at the cliché of it all ... news flash: unambitious mook working lowly retail job harbors aspirations of literary greatness in off hours! ... and so tried to extend my answer somehow. Of course, most of my other personal pursuits tend to soundbite in ways that derail conversations completely, so this left me groping for something else "safe" to share. So I fell into the deeply unfortunate but hopefully understandable trap of conflating life with work: "And, um, sometimes I fill in at the newspaper I used to work at." "Why'd you leave the newspaper?" he asked. And the Duh Hammer nailed me squarely between the eyes. "For my Pacific Crest Trail hiking trip." "You walked the Pacific Crest Trail?!?" he asked incredulously. "Well, about a thousand miles of it," I said. We ended up having an animated and terribly worthwhile three-minute talk on hiking -- an eternity in customer service time. But what stuck with me was that Duh Hammer moment. Here was this gigantic multi-month odyssey that I only, oh, upended my entire life for, that I've only been wanting to do since my college days, that took me halfway across one of America's largest states. A journey that took me to the continental U.S.' highest point and spanned distances some people can't even imagine covering without an airplane. A trip that, even in "failure" to accomplish my stated goal, still ranks as an accomplishment few would attempt to rival. And now that I'm stuck back in a daily routine, it seems so far removed from my life that a mere two months after my trail departure it doesn't even cross my mind on a list of interests without a little helpful prodding. I really don't know what this says about me (would the charitable explanation be that my life is so full of casual greatness that I can't see a thousand-mile walk as a big enough deal to alter my self-image?), but in any event, I'm pretty sure I'm embarrassed about it. * * * Speaking of the hike, I received two relevant questions from my Ask Me A Question poll. (No, I haven't forgotten AMAQ!) I was planning at some point to do a AMAQ: Baxwalk Edition, so this seems as good a time as any to revisit the meme. First, a reader asks, "How was your trip? Do you plan on resuming it anytime soon?" I never bothered to publically and officially say so until now, but my last day of actual hiking was August 1. From April 27 to August 1 -- 97 days, of which 58 were spent wholly or partially on the trail -- I covered 916 miles of the PCT. 877 of those were consecutive, from the Mexican border to Lake Edison; the remainder was the leg near our house that kadyg and I walked during my July stall-out. I cut my trip short due to medical issues, having developed patellar tendonitis in the high Sierra. (Insert irony here.) I probably could have returned after a few weeks of healing and at least limped over the 1,000-mile mark, but my financial reserves just ran too low while my knees were recovering, and I had to give myself some closure so that I could look for a job and start pulling in some income again. As far as the injury, my knees just refused to heal even slightly for about three weeks -- and then my physical therapist, getting as frustrated as I was, prescribed a regimen of intense stretching, which did the trick, and the pain and swelling cleared up within 7 relief-filled days. I enjoyed it. I loved the experiences, I love the stories, and even though I didn't finish the PCT or even the JMT, I did get through THE DESERT and climb Mount Whitney, both of which are major accomplishments. The scenery was incredible, the camaraderie was intense, the solitude (when I had it and had the time to sit back and appreciate it) was affirming, and you'd better believe I am not done with this trail by a long shot. This season's hike is over. I've made commitments that will keep me from anything so ambitious for a few years -- most notably, I'm following through on my agreement with Kady that once the season's hike was over, our next goal was to put her through cooking school -- but we've both agreed that I really ought to get back out in the backcountry in about 5 or 10 years for Baxwalk-PCT Take 2. I haven't decided whether my next attempt will pick up where I left off, or whether I want to start from the border again and re-walk those 900+ miles on my way to doing the whole thing in one season. I probably won't decide that until the next hike rolls around. Another reader asks, "Have you ever felt the terror of death grip you?" The answer is, yes, I have. The reason I mention this here is that the full explanation is one of my wildest trail stories, at which I have so far merely hinted. It deserves a special post of its own, so I'm going to keep you all in suspense for a day or two. After some sleep, I can clean out my links file and then devote some writing time to it. Current Location: ~computer_desk Current Mood: tired Current Music: "Reel Big Mario OC Remix," JAXX and Kaijin Tags: ask me a question, baxwalk pct, meme (7 comments \| Leave a comment)
September 3rd, 2006
03:36 am [Link]	F15htank QOTD I'll kick this short entry off with a relevant AMAQ question -- aknitwit asks, "Why do you spell 'fish' that way (f15h)? It looks like a password..." ( Short answer: L33tspeak. ) At any rate. kadyg and I were talking tonight, the conversation turned to fish, and on the prettiness of our p1ecostomus: B: Well, some people would say plecos are ugly. K: Boing's very pretty. B: I think so too. But some people would disagree. Let's face it, plecos are shaped like ... like mandolins. K: giggles Okay. If we ever get another pleco, I think we have to name it "Mandolin" now. B: No ... we'd have to name it *( dramatic pause!* ) Current Location: Feeding Boing at the f15htank Current Mood: fishy Current Music: "FF7 RedXIIIRedux" OC Remix Tags:** ask me a question, meme, pets, wordplay (3 comments \| Leave a comment)
August 31st, 2006
03:53 pm [Link]	AMAQ: Responses 2 (GMTA edition) Thank you all for your responses to my freshly revived Ask Me A Question poll. I'm up to 20 submissions (some of which I'm saving for last because they'll require extended explanation), and will keep answering them until I run out. If you haven't had a chance yet, feel free to pitch me a question at the original post! I'm starting to wonder if some of my readers are telepathic. I've had a few sets of responses where, within hours or minutes of each other, two people have asked me virtually the same thing. So, today's answers: *The Great Minds Think Alike metaquestion edition!* A respondent asked, "What question did you want to answer that wasn't asked, and what would your answer to it be?" ... and then, shortly thereafter another respondent asked, "What is the one question you really want someone to ask you?" If I had written this post yesterday, my hoped-for question would have been simple: "When's your next TTU story coming out?" Having people pester me to write more, after all, would be a nice egoboo. But! About 12 hours ago, a respondent read my mind, and asked, "How much TLands writing have you done recently?" So it's no longer unasked and doesn't count. ( Three answers ) A respondent asks, "Why don't you ask me a question, instead? :>" ... and immediately afterward, another respondent says, "Congratulations! You ... have just won the opportunity to ask me one question … (snip lengthy repetition of my original wording) ... What is your question?" ... thereby proving that my friends are not only telepathic, they also have warped senses of humor. :P I am extremely tempted to respond to at least one of these by pawning off a certain smartass Ph.D. candidate's question to me.* (Namely, "Prove $[Math equation; view image for details]$ ." Except the question was phrased as a series of LaTeX directives and I had to use HotEqn to decipher it.) ( An answer and two questions ) In fact, come to think of it, why don't I open that one up to the floor. I'd like to ask you all: What are you most proud of having written? I'll think it over and offer my answer to that in comments, since I'm sure someone's going to ask me anyway. -- * I did promise to preserve anonymity, but that doesn't mean I can't also be a smartass about it when necessary. I know lots of Ph.D. candidates; I still have plausible deniability. Current Location: ~/computer_desk Current Mood: hungry Current Music: Homer's Barbershop Quartet (The Simpsons sndtrk compilation) Tags: ask me a question, meme (14 comments \| Leave a comment)
August 28th, 2006
06:20 am [Link]	AMAQ: Responses 1 (photo edition) Thank you all for your responses to my freshly revived Ask Me A Question poll. I've gotten 13 questions so far, and will keep answering them until I run out. If you haven't had a chance yet, feel free to pitch me a question at the original post! I'm going to do a little cherry-picking for my first replies, because that will allow me to group them thematically. Today's answers: **The 3,000 Words (And 16 Colors) Edition!*** * Technically 3,271. To start us off, ounceofreason says, "What's the deal with the 'stache? It totally screams 'gay biker.'" ( Picture! ) chipuni says, "One of your interests is 'tilting at windmills.' At what windmills have you been tilting, recently?" ( Picture! ) soreth says, "So, why haven't you ... beaten the Great and Illegible Literature puzzle yet? ;)" ( Colors! ) A responder says, "How many attacks of the Mold Monster from the Fridge have you suffered since you made your documentary?" ( Picture! ) Current Location: ~/computer_desk Current Mood: creative Current Music: "Euthema," Fledgling Tags: ask me a question, meme, riddles (3 comments \| Leave a comment)
August 27th, 2006
02:59 am [Link]	AMAQ returns I'm suffering from a surfeit of desire to journal and a lack of drive to write anything in particular. In between that, and realizing that it's been well over three years since this particular meme made the rounds, I think it's time to resurrect this one for a sequel. Congratulations! You, as a reader of my journal, have just won the opportunity to ask me one question, to which I will respond as honestly and completely as ability and time permit. Some questions may be responded to in a separate, friends-locked post, but all honest questions will be answered. When you fill out the form below, your question will be considered anonymous unless you specify otherwise. Start it with an asterisk, , if you want me to attach your name to it. If you don't have a Livejournal account and don't see a form to fill out, you can also add a comment to this post -- comments will be screened so only I see them. (Again, anonymous unless you specify otherwise.) Poll #807848* Ask Me A Question II: Attack of the Clones Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None Ask me any one question, to be answered fully and honestly: n.b.: If you can't think of anything to ask me because you can't think of any secrets I might be keeping ... well, don't let that stop you. Ask me my opinion of something among our mutual interests. Or to expand on a subject I've touched on recently in my journal. Or to say something on a subject I haven't covered in my journal enough. Half the fun of this meme is coming up with the questions! n.b. #2: If I get any sufficiently interesting questions, I reserve the right to answer one of them via comic strip (ref. My Afternoon: A Dramatization). Is that any extra incentive? `]B=8)` Current Location: ~/computer_desk Current Mood: ambitious Current Music: The Palladinos, "In My City Heart" Tags: ask me a question, meme (4 comments \| Leave a comment)

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