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First, thanks to the friends who helped me questing on WoW last night; good company, and much appreciated. I love the fact that there's weather in that universe - and, as Moondagger mentioned, evidently there are seasons also. I'll have to visit at a time different than my usual, to see what the place looks like in daylight.
Evil spiders were killed.
At the moment in Real Life I've just finished making a couple of quiches, to take to the brunch that will kick off the Family Reunion. It amazes me that the little group of us that's in those old b/w photos from the '50s - Mom, Dad, Mary Ann, Barbara, and Eddy - are still together, though now with the addition of the bloodline of nieces, nephews, and one grand-nephew. Like a little wagon-train that's made it a long, long way together across the plain.
The Family bbq will be here tomorrow - mostly because it's getting close to triple digits where my parents live - and, because of brunch and Family Excursions today, I didn't get much work done yesterday, prepping for that and for house-guests (my sister and her daughter - which will make things MUCH easier tomorrow morning when it's time to set up the shelter and devil mass quantities of eggs.) It's odd that after prepping and cleaning and washing patio-furniture, last night I almost cancelled out of the expedition to the Realm of Azeroth: I was tired and cranky and moody. And yet, I not only enjoyed it hugely, but I felt much better when I returned. (I say "returned" like I was actually someplace other than the chair in my study, staring into a screen.)
I've finally sorted out what needs to happen at this point in Dead and Buried, which makes me feel better. In the outline it's hugely complicated, and I've realized it doesn't need to be. A simple confrontation will do the job. (Rather like those movies that spend 121 minutes thrashing over a problem that could have been solved with a phone call behind the opening credits - only in many cases like that, the only thing that could then follow the opening credits would be the closing credits. No bad thing, in some films I could name).
Everyone have a lovely holiday.
barbara_hambly
03 July 2009 @ 08:11 am
Current Location: here
Current Music: none
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28 June 2009 @ 06:32 pm
Whew! I've reached the stage of the rough draft of Dead and Buried where I feel, literally, as if I sit down in my chair and disappear into New Orleans for 5 hours a day. There's this sensation of coming back briefly to get more tea or check my e-mail, if my mind needs a rest, but then it's dropping back into... someplace.
Maybe that's the reason I find WoW - and videogaming in general - so familiar-feeling. The sense of dropping through the screen long pre-dates my use of a screen.
I had hoped to wrap this draft before the Family Reunion, but that's not going to happen - I need to spend the next two days in School World, and the following two tidying up the house and prepping for the 4th of July bbq. And, it's hard to do first draft for more than a few hours a day.
Do other people have that problem? That first draft is FAR more tiring? (I know I tend to need more sleep when I'm doing it).
On the other side of dropping through the screen, would anyone like to meet me at the Inn at Dolanaar Thursday at 6 for a quest? I went over to Auberdine to the Fire Festival, and picked up half a dozen quests in and around Auberdine, which include a couple that don't look safe to do by myself. (That Red Crystal business sounds a little steep).
Maybe that's the reason I find WoW - and videogaming in general - so familiar-feeling. The sense of dropping through the screen long pre-dates my use of a screen.
I had hoped to wrap this draft before the Family Reunion, but that's not going to happen - I need to spend the next two days in School World, and the following two tidying up the house and prepping for the 4th of July bbq. And, it's hard to do first draft for more than a few hours a day.
Do other people have that problem? That first draft is FAR more tiring? (I know I tend to need more sleep when I'm doing it).
On the other side of dropping through the screen, would anyone like to meet me at the Inn at Dolanaar Thursday at 6 for a quest? I went over to Auberdine to the Fire Festival, and picked up half a dozen quests in and around Auberdine, which include a couple that don't look safe to do by myself. (That Red Crystal business sounds a little steep).
Current Location: here
Current Music: stillness
24 June 2009 @ 10:18 am
Gosh! I am flattered - and a little flabbergasted - at the overwhelming response to the news that there'll be a third vampire book. (Well, fourth, because Renfield was a vampire book...)
And I assure you, I am also taking notes about the enthusiasm concerning Antryg, Starhawk, etc... There may be Other Things Afoot, if I can just stay afloat long enough to get a little breathing-room.
It's interesting the number of people who've mentioned my feeling that vampires live, not simply on blood, but upon the psychic rush of death itself - that they MUST kill their victims in order to survive themselves. I've always believed in dangerous vampires. These are NOT people you want to get close to, NOT people you want to know, no matter how attractive they are... And as Ysidro says to Asher at one poing in Traveling, "It is how we hunt." (Why else would you go into a dark alley to be embraced by a total stranger?) I read Interview With the Vampire when it first came out, and was staggeringly impressed with it - yet I always objected to the movement it started for what I think of as Soft Vampires.
In the meantime, I've read over the outline for A,L,&Y#3, and remembered again why I REALLY wanted to write that story.
Yes, I need to wrap up both PWMNBSO-II and Dead and Buried this summer - with interruption for the Family Reunion - before embarking on Blood Maidens. And no, don't ANYBODY wish that I'd have my classes cancelled, because that would actually mean I'd have to get a 9-to-5 and none of us want what that would mean.
On the Warcraft Familiarization front, I think this week I may just walk around a little and acquaint myself with the city of Darnassus, rather than do a quest or anything. How do those hippogriff rides to the mainland operate if you're not on a quest? Can you just go down to the wharf and ask to be taken across to Auberdine, and then get a ride back when you're done there?
And I assure you, I am also taking notes about the enthusiasm concerning Antryg, Starhawk, etc... There may be Other Things Afoot, if I can just stay afloat long enough to get a little breathing-room.
It's interesting the number of people who've mentioned my feeling that vampires live, not simply on blood, but upon the psychic rush of death itself - that they MUST kill their victims in order to survive themselves. I've always believed in dangerous vampires. These are NOT people you want to get close to, NOT people you want to know, no matter how attractive they are... And as Ysidro says to Asher at one poing in Traveling, "It is how we hunt." (Why else would you go into a dark alley to be embraced by a total stranger?) I read Interview With the Vampire when it first came out, and was staggeringly impressed with it - yet I always objected to the movement it started for what I think of as Soft Vampires.
In the meantime, I've read over the outline for A,L,&Y#3, and remembered again why I REALLY wanted to write that story.
Yes, I need to wrap up both PWMNBSO-II and Dead and Buried this summer - with interruption for the Family Reunion - before embarking on Blood Maidens. And no, don't ANYBODY wish that I'd have my classes cancelled, because that would actually mean I'd have to get a 9-to-5 and none of us want what that would mean.
On the Warcraft Familiarization front, I think this week I may just walk around a little and acquaint myself with the city of Darnassus, rather than do a quest or anything. How do those hippogriff rides to the mainland operate if you're not on a quest? Can you just go down to the wharf and ask to be taken across to Auberdine, and then get a ride back when you're done there?
Current Location: here
Current Music: stillness
23 June 2009 @ 10:06 am
There will be a third Asher and Ysidro book.
Those nice folks who're doing Benjamin #9 & 10 (and more, I hope...!) have picked up Asher & Ysidro #3.
It will make for a LOT of work this summer and fall, but given that there's no guarantee that the classes I'm signed up to teach in the fall won't be cancelled out from under me, I'm glad...
Completely apart from the fact that it will be so nice to be back with Asher, Lydia, and Ysidro again, even if it will make for a horrendous work schedule.
Severn House is a UK publisher, but at least the books will be available through Amazon. And, according to my agent, NOTHING is moving in New York publishing.
Now I have to get back to work.
For the next couple of years, I'll be saying that a LOT.
Those nice folks who're doing Benjamin #9 & 10 (and more, I hope...!) have picked up Asher & Ysidro #3.
It will make for a LOT of work this summer and fall, but given that there's no guarantee that the classes I'm signed up to teach in the fall won't be cancelled out from under me, I'm glad...
Completely apart from the fact that it will be so nice to be back with Asher, Lydia, and Ysidro again, even if it will make for a horrendous work schedule.
Severn House is a UK publisher, but at least the books will be available through Amazon. And, according to my agent, NOTHING is moving in New York publishing.
Now I have to get back to work.
For the next couple of years, I'll be saying that a LOT.
Current Location: here
Current Music: stillness
16 June 2009 @ 09:30 am
Jasmine woke me this morning at 5:45, obviously worried, noodging and purring and chewing in her sweet, wordless kitty-cat way to motivate me to do something about the empty (or almost empty, or going to be almost empty fairly soon) dish situation.
How can anyone resist someone that beautiful?
It's tea and lecture-notes all day - 20th Century US History and explaining about what kind of war you get, after you invent the machine-gun but before you invent the tank. 36 people so far are signed up for the class, which is at 8 a.m. I figure if I devote 2 days per week to the task this summer, I should have the full semester of notes by the time the class actually starts. I'm helped by the fact that there are several very good documentaries on 20th Century - we can actually see Roosevelt and Kennedy and Hitler in action, and hear their voices. God, I wish I could see footage of Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams and Catherine the Great, and hear what their voices sounded like.
Anyone want to go on quests Thursday evening, 6 pm PDT - meet in the lobby of the Inn at Dolanaar as usual? I need to deal with the evil Timberling Oakenscowl, and do the bear-form quest.
How can anyone resist someone that beautiful?
It's tea and lecture-notes all day - 20th Century US History and explaining about what kind of war you get, after you invent the machine-gun but before you invent the tank. 36 people so far are signed up for the class, which is at 8 a.m. I figure if I devote 2 days per week to the task this summer, I should have the full semester of notes by the time the class actually starts. I'm helped by the fact that there are several very good documentaries on 20th Century - we can actually see Roosevelt and Kennedy and Hitler in action, and hear their voices. God, I wish I could see footage of Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams and Catherine the Great, and hear what their voices sounded like.
Anyone want to go on quests Thursday evening, 6 pm PDT - meet in the lobby of the Inn at Dolanaar as usual? I need to deal with the evil Timberling Oakenscowl, and do the bear-form quest.
Current Location: here
Current Music: none
11 June 2009 @ 06:31 pm
Actually two gaming questions:
a) What's the recommendation for a Druid talent path? It LOOKS like I'd be best advised to go for Feral Combat because I'll continue to do a certain amount of solo questing.
b) What's a recommendation for a platform, NON-Internet game, that can be played with two people? I need to find out what that's like. (I'd like to stay away from Living Dead and zombie-killer 1st-person shooters, since Bioshock creeps me out and gives me nightmares).
a) What's the recommendation for a Druid talent path? It LOOKS like I'd be best advised to go for Feral Combat because I'll continue to do a certain amount of solo questing.
b) What's a recommendation for a platform, NON-Internet game, that can be played with two people? I need to find out what that's like. (I'd like to stay away from Living Dead and zombie-killer 1st-person shooters, since Bioshock creeps me out and gives me nightmares).
Current Location: home
Current Music: quietness
11 June 2009 @ 01:44 pm
Well, it’s done. A long ceremony – 1200 graduates, each of whom had to shake hands with President Garber on the platform and get his/her picture snapped, the only way the school has of precluding the armies of family and friends from swarming the front of the dais. Family and friends were out in force: every one of those 1200 students, ranging in ages from 16 to 76, had their cheering-squad, howling and setting off fart-balloons. All those young Hispanic man-boys, all those Indian girls who barely came up to the President’s armpit, all those blushing Valley chicks and stout black housewives and grave Muslim youths, looked excited enough to have their hair catch fire. You had to love them.
It was frakking cold, astonishing for the Valley in June, and getting dark by the time President Garber – still smiling (he’s a trooper, and cool) – shook hands with the last of them, and they all filed between two lines of faculty in full academic robes, applauding them on the first steps of a journey which is going to make Frodo’s trip to Mordor look like an outing in the 100-Acre Woods. Follow the Yellow Brick Road, folks, and Don’t Look Back.
Then an extremely pleasant faculty after-party at the house of a colleague, and some bonding-time with other members of the Department, one of whom – under the influence of a glass or two of chablis, I suspect – actually sang the eighteenth-century English college drinking-song whose tune got cribbed for “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “Anacreon in Heaven.”
Only historians.
Current Location: home
Current Music: stillness
09 June 2009 @ 07:10 pm
For the people who were nice enough to react positively when I mention the novels I'm working on this summer - Yes, one of the novels is Dead and Buried, Benjamin January #9, Yay!
It opens with the funeral of one of the other free colored musicians in New Orleans; the coffin gets accidentally dropped, splits open, and out falls, not a dead free colored musician, but the body of a white man whom nobody has ever seen before... except Hannibal (who's the only white guy at the funeral). "We were up at Oxford together," he says.
The other novel is, of course, PWMNBSO-II. I am extremely pleased with both of them so far. (PWMNBSO-II exists as a complete rough draft, Dead and Buried is a rough draft slightly more than halfway done).
In September, by the way, Homeland will be out - I think it's what's called Literary Fiction, an audience that's still new territory for me.
I've had an outline for Asher & Ysidro #3 in circulation for a couple of years - it spent over a year on the desk of a single editor. Believe me, if and when we hear anything on it, I will announce it here.
PWMNBSO-I will be out in October... I'll speak more of it, closer to the time. The cover is gorgeous, even though my actual name isn't on it.
I'm contracted for PWMNBSO-III, and January #10... though because the two January books are being published in England, and English taxes being what they are, even though I signed the contract seven months ago, I have yet to see dime one on it. And won't, I suspect, until after I turn in the manuscript. It's hard sometimes not to feel discouraged and anxious.
It opens with the funeral of one of the other free colored musicians in New Orleans; the coffin gets accidentally dropped, splits open, and out falls, not a dead free colored musician, but the body of a white man whom nobody has ever seen before... except Hannibal (who's the only white guy at the funeral). "We were up at Oxford together," he says.
The other novel is, of course, PWMNBSO-II. I am extremely pleased with both of them so far. (PWMNBSO-II exists as a complete rough draft, Dead and Buried is a rough draft slightly more than halfway done).
In September, by the way, Homeland will be out - I think it's what's called Literary Fiction, an audience that's still new territory for me.
I've had an outline for Asher & Ysidro #3 in circulation for a couple of years - it spent over a year on the desk of a single editor. Believe me, if and when we hear anything on it, I will announce it here.
PWMNBSO-I will be out in October... I'll speak more of it, closer to the time. The cover is gorgeous, even though my actual name isn't on it.
I'm contracted for PWMNBSO-III, and January #10... though because the two January books are being published in England, and English taxes being what they are, even though I signed the contract seven months ago, I have yet to see dime one on it. And won't, I suspect, until after I turn in the manuscript. It's hard sometimes not to feel discouraged and anxious.
Current Location: home
Current Music: Jasmine purring
08 June 2009 @ 08:50 pm
Today was the semester's final Final - and a very nice Indian dinner afterwards with a friend. I also got to rat out my three plagarists to the Dean of Students, and conversely, turn in a special Honors-track History paper to the Honors office, to the enormous credit of the young man who did it.
Wednesday is Graduation, and the Faculty Gala - by all accounts a day of wall-to-wall chow.
Now I'm off for 90 days... in which I get to finish two novels and write a course of lectures on 20th Century America which may be cancelled before I get to give them.
I will have to rest fast.
Wednesday is Graduation, and the Faculty Gala - by all accounts a day of wall-to-wall chow.
Now I'm off for 90 days... in which I get to finish two novels and write a course of lectures on 20th Century America which may be cancelled before I get to give them.
I will have to rest fast.
Current Location: here
Current Music: stillness
04 June 2009 @ 09:23 am
Well, since - thanks to the State of California's fiscal policies for the past decade or so - I will be spending a lot more time this summer in Book World, I get to balance that out by spending the next two or three days in School World, grading exams and (as I say in my previous post) reading research papers - some of which are genuinely excellent and were NOT simply downloaded off the Net. (I caught a couple of truly egregious ones after I posted last). (Do they think we don't have ways to check these things?)
It's gray and mild here - what I think of, for some reason, as Jurassic Weather - and the flowers are gorgeous: red trumpet-vine outside the study window, which brings hummingbirds; jasmine everywhere; the tail-end of the roses' spring flush; the monster gardenia outside the front door just coming into summer bloom. A good day for tea and deciphering handwriting.
It's gray and mild here - what I think of, for some reason, as Jurassic Weather - and the flowers are gorgeous: red trumpet-vine outside the study window, which brings hummingbirds; jasmine everywhere; the tail-end of the roses' spring flush; the monster gardenia outside the front door just coming into summer bloom. A good day for tea and deciphering handwriting.
Current Location: here
Current Music: birdsong
03 June 2009 @ 06:03 pm
Anyone up for a quest Friday night at 6 PDT? Again, limited time; again, meet in the lobby of the Inn at Dolanaar - as a break from reading final exams and "research papers" whose only research was to visit essaydepot.com. I'll be at the foot of the stairs at 6.
Current Location: here
Current Music: stillness
31 May 2009 @ 12:43 pm
Yes, there was indeed additional paper caught in the works which required a bit more taking-apart than I was confident about doing. Then the thing proceeded to grind paper through, printing one line of gibberish per sheet, until it was turned off and I fussed around on the computer "control panel" for awhile.
Very annoying, but it's working fine now (which is the reason I got an HP to begin with, all those years ago. They're iron workhorses.)
Many thanks all.
Very annoying, but it's working fine now (which is the reason I got an HP to begin with, all those years ago. They're iron workhorses.)
Many thanks all.
31 May 2009 @ 09:30 am
Anybody out there know anything about Laserjet printers?
I cleared a paper-jam from mine last night, and now it's blinking lights and refusing to print. (After hitting the usual re-set buttons)
So the question is: do I buy a new one because of a paper-jam? (after losing my summer's income).
Or do I call in a repair-guy and spend the cost of a new one clearing a paper-jam on a printer that's at least 12 years old?
It's an HP 2100.
I'll go on-line to their "service" site, but I've NEVER gotten much use out of those places.
Anybody who can help me with this, please let me know.
On the up-side, I figured out a work-around for the Auto-Text problem I was having a couple of months ago when I switched to Word 2007, using AutoCorrect (once I found the damn thing).
I cleared a paper-jam from mine last night, and now it's blinking lights and refusing to print. (After hitting the usual re-set buttons)
So the question is: do I buy a new one because of a paper-jam? (after losing my summer's income).
Or do I call in a repair-guy and spend the cost of a new one clearing a paper-jam on a printer that's at least 12 years old?
It's an HP 2100.
I'll go on-line to their "service" site, but I've NEVER gotten much use out of those places.
Anybody who can help me with this, please let me know.
On the up-side, I figured out a work-around for the Auto-Text problem I was having a couple of months ago when I switched to Word 2007, using AutoCorrect (once I found the damn thing).
28 May 2009 @ 03:04 pm
Well, at the History Department Pizza Lunch they dropped the bomb. The summer session - at which I was going to teach a condensed US History class - has been cancelled.
I can't say I'm surprised. Gives me more time to write up lecture-notes for the new class I'll allegedly be teaching in the Fall, of course... if that doesn't go away, too.
Meanwhile, there are student papers yet to read - and student e-mails which demand the repeated and patient explanations that No, I can't tell them what grade they're getting because they haven't taken the final and I haven't read their research paper yet (some of them haven't even turned the paper in... or started work on it, by the sound of their recent communications). (And that's not even allowing time for the computerized plagarism-checks). One very nice fellow explained, he wanted to know how well he had to do on the Final to get an A. Sounds like, gosh, do I need to study really hard, or only a little bit?
Amazing.
I can't say I'm surprised. Gives me more time to write up lecture-notes for the new class I'll allegedly be teaching in the Fall, of course... if that doesn't go away, too.
Meanwhile, there are student papers yet to read - and student e-mails which demand the repeated and patient explanations that No, I can't tell them what grade they're getting because they haven't taken the final and I haven't read their research paper yet (some of them haven't even turned the paper in... or started work on it, by the sound of their recent communications). (And that's not even allowing time for the computerized plagarism-checks). One very nice fellow explained, he wanted to know how well he had to do on the Final to get an A. Sounds like, gosh, do I need to study really hard, or only a little bit?
Amazing.
Current Location: here
Current Music: birdsong
27 May 2009 @ 05:35 pm
Now that the semester is drawing to a close, my e-mail is filled with students wanting to know what they're getting ("I'll know when you've taken the final and turned in your research paper..."), whether they can take make-up tests for those exams they didn't bother to show up for during the semester, and, if they can change the topic of the research paper that's due next week. (Been procrastinating, have you, hon?) And, do I give extra credit? (See that portion of the syllabus that says, I DO NOT GIVE EXTRA CREDIT...?) And, can they turn in their research paper late? ("Only if you understand that I'll be grading it in the middle of the night, angry.")
I know they don't listen. It still puzzles me a little, but it's a fact.
I suspect there'll be no trip to Teldrassil this week, nor much of anything else. I get about 6 weeks off - with WAY too much to do during that time, including writing up lecture-notes for a new class in the fall, if it's not cancelled out from under me. Possibly two new classes, since I've just heard of one opening up at another college in the district, but as with everything these days, there's a long line of impoverished PhD's ahead of me.
I can but try.
I know they don't listen. It still puzzles me a little, but it's a fact.
I suspect there'll be no trip to Teldrassil this week, nor much of anything else. I get about 6 weeks off - with WAY too much to do during that time, including writing up lecture-notes for a new class in the fall, if it's not cancelled out from under me. Possibly two new classes, since I've just heard of one opening up at another college in the district, but as with everything these days, there's a long line of impoverished PhD's ahead of me.
I can but try.
Current Location: here
Current Music: stillness
21 May 2009 @ 08:06 pm
Well, that was amazing! Thank you, thank you all, to those who helped me; we definitely need to do that again.
We slaughtered evil orange and still-more-evil blue Grells, several humanoid hulks, and an Evil Satyr; or rather, the other ladies slaughtered them while I stood around and tried to get my spells to work. Every time I launched one of those green fireballs at something, it was already keeling over dead. I felt extremely slow and stupid.
Way too much information, and things happening way too fast. There is much I still need to learn. Believe me, I appreciate the advice and help.
We slaughtered evil orange and still-more-evil blue Grells, several humanoid hulks, and an Evil Satyr; or rather, the other ladies slaughtered them while I stood around and tried to get my spells to work. Every time I launched one of those green fireballs at something, it was already keeling over dead. I felt extremely slow and stupid.
Way too much information, and things happening way too fast. There is much I still need to learn. Believe me, I appreciate the advice and help.
Current Location: back home (BACK?!?)
Current Music: stillness
17 May 2009 @ 08:06 am
Well, let's see how this works.
Thursday evening at 6 pm Pacific Daylight Time, I'll be at the Inn at Dolnaar Village, on the Eonar Server, in the main lobby at the foot of the stairs. I have a quest to go kill an evil Satyr and get his head, and another one to fetch a little oojah from a monster-haunted village where I got killed about four times last try, and I'd like company if possible. I go by the name of Biddy Cloom, and I'm a VERY low-ranked druid. I'll stick around the inn until 6:15. Any instruction on how to use Chat, or how to speak to others, would be much appreciated; I'm really terrible and slow. I can play for about 2 hours.
It's gray and quiet here this morning, and I'm looking forward to a day of actual work. I love mornings like these, before the noise of the freeway starts up, when all you hear is the voices of the crows.
I installed and played a little of Grim Fandango last night - what a hoot! A very different approach to gaming.
Thursday evening at 6 pm Pacific Daylight Time, I'll be at the Inn at Dolnaar Village, on the Eonar Server, in the main lobby at the foot of the stairs. I have a quest to go kill an evil Satyr and get his head, and another one to fetch a little oojah from a monster-haunted village where I got killed about four times last try, and I'd like company if possible. I go by the name of Biddy Cloom, and I'm a VERY low-ranked druid. I'll stick around the inn until 6:15. Any instruction on how to use Chat, or how to speak to others, would be much appreciated; I'm really terrible and slow. I can play for about 2 hours.
It's gray and quiet here this morning, and I'm looking forward to a day of actual work. I love mornings like these, before the noise of the freeway starts up, when all you hear is the voices of the crows.
I installed and played a little of Grim Fandango last night - what a hoot! A very different approach to gaming.
Current Location: here
Current Music: stillness
14 May 2009 @ 10:16 am
Wow (no pun intended)! I'm delighted and a little bashful about the response to my request for questing assistance. Since I've never done RPGs before, I'm not even sure what I need in a group... I've heard of Tanks and Healers in group dynamics, but am not sure what they do, or how I can assist other group members if necessary.
Because of school responsibilities I'm not sure I'll have even my usual time in the game this weekend - I'll probably spend what time I have doing housekeeping like finding a Druid trainer in the village of Dolna'ar and putting together items and equipment, but the idea of doing one of the low-level, night-elf Teldrassil group quests next weekend (21st or 22nd) appeals. Thank you. I'll get get in touch with time-and-place as I'm more sure of my (annoyingly tight) schedule.
Thank you all.
Does anybody know if there's a version of that old and tiny program Tonite that will run on Vista? It's a historical phases-of-the-moon program that gives rise-and-set times for any date ranging back to 1800. I use it a lot, and now that I have the new computer my old version of it won't run on a 64-bit system.
Because of school responsibilities I'm not sure I'll have even my usual time in the game this weekend - I'll probably spend what time I have doing housekeeping like finding a Druid trainer in the village of Dolna'ar and putting together items and equipment, but the idea of doing one of the low-level, night-elf Teldrassil group quests next weekend (21st or 22nd) appeals. Thank you. I'll get get in touch with time-and-place as I'm more sure of my (annoyingly tight) schedule.
Thank you all.
Does anybody know if there's a version of that old and tiny program Tonite that will run on Vista? It's a historical phases-of-the-moon program that gives rise-and-set times for any date ranging back to 1800. I use it a lot, and now that I have the new computer my old version of it won't run on a 64-bit system.
Current Location: home
Current Music: stillness
13 May 2009 @ 07:53 am
A suggestion from an LJ friend has given me a thought.
Between teaching three classes, and two deadlines upcoming on books, I am not able to sign on to World of Warcraft for more than a couple of hours, once a week. However, I do need to increase my skills and experience in that realm, and I'm reaching the point where I need to do group quests in the training-area of Teldrassil (I'm a Night Elf - later I'll start a couple of other characters in other realms).
Any tips or pointers on how one finds a quest group for a couple of hours, when one is not a regular player, would be appreciated. (Does one just hang out in the inn and sidle up to promising warriors? "Up for a quickie, BigBoy?")
Or, would someone be willing to meet me for a very low-level (but too dangerous for an inexperienced soloist) quest? I'm in the realm of Eonar, in Teldrassil, and I'm only able to be there early evening PDT Thursdays or Fridays.
Anyone able to meet me?
On other fronts, I've regretfully reached the conclusion that I need to dismiss caffeine from my life. I did so four years ago, but with teaching it has crept back in. It needs to go away now for good. Unfortunately, there are very few liquids that contain NEITHER caffeine, sugar, alcohol, nor dairy... water's about it. (Flavored herbal teas are filth.)
At the New York Comic Con, svelte elf-girls were handing out demitasses of a drink called mana: a sucrose-and-vitamins jolt designed for players who needed energy to keep going. Is that what Frodo and Sam used to wash down their lembas health-bars?
I have achieved a copy of Grim Fandango, so that's on the agenda for this weekend as well, if I have time.
Between teaching three classes, and two deadlines upcoming on books, I am not able to sign on to World of Warcraft for more than a couple of hours, once a week. However, I do need to increase my skills and experience in that realm, and I'm reaching the point where I need to do group quests in the training-area of Teldrassil (I'm a Night Elf - later I'll start a couple of other characters in other realms).
Any tips or pointers on how one finds a quest group for a couple of hours, when one is not a regular player, would be appreciated. (Does one just hang out in the inn and sidle up to promising warriors? "Up for a quickie, BigBoy?")
Or, would someone be willing to meet me for a very low-level (but too dangerous for an inexperienced soloist) quest? I'm in the realm of Eonar, in Teldrassil, and I'm only able to be there early evening PDT Thursdays or Fridays.
Anyone able to meet me?
On other fronts, I've regretfully reached the conclusion that I need to dismiss caffeine from my life. I did so four years ago, but with teaching it has crept back in. It needs to go away now for good. Unfortunately, there are very few liquids that contain NEITHER caffeine, sugar, alcohol, nor dairy... water's about it. (Flavored herbal teas are filth.)
At the New York Comic Con, svelte elf-girls were handing out demitasses of a drink called mana: a sucrose-and-vitamins jolt designed for players who needed energy to keep going. Is that what Frodo and Sam used to wash down their lembas health-bars?
I have achieved a copy of Grim Fandango, so that's on the agenda for this weekend as well, if I have time.
Current Location: home
Current Music: stillness
01 May 2009 @ 04:29 pm
Had a lovely hike with an old friend when I should have been working. Warm but cloudy, a gray atmosphere that makes the wildflowers that strew the hills at this season seem so brilliant. Lots of lizards, lots of grasshoppers, about five varieties of ants observed (including an extremely tiny species who seemed to be engaged in drilling a nest in solid rock). I am now slightly dehydrated and extremely tired, and sore from a slip-n-fall when my leg muscles got too fatigued to catch myself quickly.
My friend remarked that he, too, finds First Person Shooters disturbing, for the same reason I do: it's too intimate. He recommended Grim Fandango, which I've read about and will need to hunt down - probably also will need to hunt down a PS-2. It sounds like a hoot.
Discussed galactic dark matter over lunch.
My friend remarked that he, too, finds First Person Shooters disturbing, for the same reason I do: it's too intimate. He recommended Grim Fandango, which I've read about and will need to hunt down - probably also will need to hunt down a PS-2. It sounds like a hoot.
Discussed galactic dark matter over lunch.
Current Location: home
Current Music: stillness