Dinner at Bombay House tonight; they're still good at that. I avoid their non-tandoori chicken -- giant lumps of tastesless breast meat -- for their lamb; had lamb karahi tonight and it was quite good. Some garlic ginger onion dish. But! when we asked for extra rice, we got told it'd be $3.95. We've never been told that before. They claim they've done it all along. This seems suspicious, as we've always split our bills, and no one's ever asked "who gets the charge for the extra rice." They suggested it was spread around the party before, but you know, that takes a fair bit of math on the fly.

Totally unrelatedly, Kroger doesn't have corn tortillas -- not real ones, just pre-cooked shells. Bloomingfood's West does though, possibly their cheapest starch -- $1.89 for 36 tortillas, 1800 calories. Well, raw grain is probably cheaper.

We have a Thursday Doctor Who night, watching Doctor Who, Torchwood, Sarah Jane... Red Dwarf for a while. Tonight we branched into Leverage, off DVR instead of DVD or Netflix online. We got exposed to commercials! I haven't seen commercials in years, except for ones in movies.

links:
* Facebook application scams: one, two. Maybe you shouldn't have been playing so much Mafia Wars.

* Better school lunches mean better student performance. Which implies most of us should be eating more vegetables, too.

* Divisions among American Muslims. It's almost as if they're normal people, with class, culture, and race differences!

* Health care: it's subsidies that cost, not the public option per se? Why is Lieberman nattering about blocking the public option to save the budget? Well, lots of insurers in his state...

* Krugman can't watch Fox Business.

* Europe's lessons on unemloyment, and India's job guarantee. (From Randy)

* Ten year old boy in Arkansas sits down for gay rights

* Lindsey Graham, highly conservative Senator, is censored by his state for being too compromising with liberals. One, two.

* AMA says marijuana could have medical use, should get more research

Catholic shenanigans: threatening to stop charity in DC over benefits for gay employees; fighting for anti-gay discrimination in adoption in Britain, a battle they already lost in Boston.

Irony
* The Republican National Committee has offered employees a health plan covering abortion since 1991. They say they'll stop though, now that Politico pointed this out.

I just checked out and read the first two volumes of Earthlight, a manga-format comic by Stuart Moore. I liked it... one reviewer called it a mix of teen drama and space action SF, which seems right, and thought it was too fast and heavy on the action, which I can see. The year is 2068, the place is the Earthlight colony on the Moon, whose main function is supporting (and presumably building) power satellites. Panels on the Moon collect power, beam it to satellites, which focus it for beaming to Earth -- which needs 25 terawatts of electricity (today: 1.5 TW) but still has lots of social divisions: "7 billion in poverty", England decaying, Russia and China not places to be. Launch costs aren't mentioned, hopefully much lower. Politics are big: the colony is supported by a 54-country coalition, with many countries being happy to sneak out of paying. "Enburton Corporation" gets mentioned briefly, as a source of new funding. I got a faint whiff of libertarianism early on but it seems to have dispersed; right now I'd call the politics on the grim side of realistic, with no perceivable authorial bias. Well, maybe liberal, given Enburton and what it'll do.

Fridge logic: I just wondered why solar panels would be on the Moon, where they'd get 14-day nights.

There's a mass driver, presumably for launching stuff for satellites.

The characterization seems good, esp. most of the teens. Oh, right! The protagonist, male, has a black father -- who is administrator of the colony, and not a "bull Negro" aesthetic and a white mother. Though come to think of it, the 15 year old protag himself has a shaved head.

So, imperfect but intriguing, and I know some people (James) are desperate for near-future space SF that doesn't totally suck. Lack of libertarianism and He3 should be a plus.

Positive review.
Mixed review.
TOKYOPOP page for the book, with Flash-delivered preview pages. Illegible as is, but you can zoom in.

Interview, which tells me that it's a 3 volume thing but the 3rd hasn't been in print and will be online free in January. Also claims there are mecha, though there haven't been so far, just utility bots. Huh, the artist is involved with Barack the Barbarian.

* Stewart Brand of Whole Earth Whatever fame discovers the feminist and environmentalist joys of cities. James is reading through Whole Earth Discipline with comments.

Ever wonder what a rehabilitation-oriented prison system would look like? Norway gives a small clue.
* Visit to a high security prison, which includes Internet access.
* Photos of a low-security prison
* Eco-prison, actually modifications to an existing open prison
* More on what open prison means. It looks luxurious, but it's actually rehab for prisoners nearing the end of their sentence; they start in a more traditional closed prison. (With Internet.) They retain the vote, even in prison, and there was a teleconferenced political debate between politicians and prisoners. 21 years is the maximum sentence. More
* Stats on who ends up in prison. Unsurprisingly: low education, unemployment, mental problems.

* For Fanw: a secular German coming of age rite.

* the missing Republican women legislators

* Anonymous whistleblower says IEA has been lying about oil production, peak oil is nigh.

* Pro-choice Democrats voting for the Stupak amendment
* Failure breeds failure, success breeds success

* Long essay on US high-speed rail. China's pulling well ahead of us. Amtrak's Acela is "high-speed" only by our primitive standards.

* Dangers of the paranoid takeover of the GOP.

One thing I purchased at Bfoods East was PHEASANT & ROSEMARY PATE with Pork and Duck. The actual ingredient list is Duck, Pork, Pork Fate, Pheasant, Onion, Water, Pork Liver, Duck Liver, Spies, Pecans, Port, Salt. I think a false impression was conveyed. Still tastes good, and didn't cost more than the other pate. But still.

Evening links:
* Rosy memories of Communist Hungary. See comments as well.
* Libertarians and climate change denialism

Older links:
* Heroic blacks on TV: bald head and goatee
* Female urination device
* GOP as group therapy for fear? Though it often seems like they feed on fear. Fear the Muslim/liberal/socialist/PC/feminist...
* Sexism in Holmes (author, not Sherlock) D&D supplements
* glass armonica
* The lost generation of growth
* "All Christian" prison
* Is New England like Europe? Nationalism vs. piety.
* Does exercise work for weight loss?

Post-pneumonia: my voice still sounds odd to me; others haven't noticed but akashiver did. But I otherwise feel healthier, and went for a bike ride today since it was so nice. 15 minutes to Bloomingfood East, 16 back from Border's. A couple of curbs along 3rd seem to have been made wheelchair accessible since I last went that way. Bfood East has dill seed and ground rosemary, unlike the other brances; also nice plump raisins. Spent a lot of money at Border's: Ghost in the Shell movie, 2nd Gig, Unseen Academicals, Jhegaala, Algebraist, Spirited Away, Haruhi Suzumiya novels. Almost bought the Nausicaa manga but they were missing #6 of the 7-volume edition and I don't even know which edition I want. There are Haruhi Suzumiya manga too, allegedly by the same author, and there seemed to be a couple of stories I didn't recognize -- something about Kyon's grandmother and data lifeforms. I didn't buy them.

Biking into the sunset provided new experience of the usefulness of headlights. I could see cars coming at me, but they were dim... easy to miss if your attention drifted. Which it shouldn't while on the road, but we're all imperfect, ne? Headlights are a lot more attention grabbing. I hope mine helped, though given the directions my taillight was probably more useful.

I had the Runcible Spoon's coffee straight for once, without sugar or cream. It was nice, and not bitter.

Links since yesterday:
* US growth before and after Reagan
* Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice, weirdly edited, an essay to a post-Terror French Revolutionary government on the equal right of humanity to natural property, and the justice of an inheritance tax to fund starter funds for those turning 21 and a pension for those over 50. (When people talk about how liberal/left/right/whatever past people were, and not judging them by modern standards... Paine is one Founding Father who'd come comfortably on the left even today, though I think he's weak on feminist advocacy. Not necessarily openly sexist, but not something he wrote about.)

BTW, his opinion of conservatism, in the sense of arguing from tradition, in The Rights of Man:


"The error of those who reason by precedents drawn from antiquity, respecting the rights of man, is that they do not go far enough into antiquity. They do not go the whole way. They stop in some of the intermediate stages of an hundred or a thousand years, and produce what was then done, as a rule for the present day. This is no authority at all. If we travel still farther into antiquity, we shall find a direct contrary opinion and practice prevailing; and if antiquity is to be authority, a thousand such authorities may be produced, successively contradicting each other; but if we proceed on, we shall at last come out right; we shall come to the time when man came from the hand of his Maker. What was he then? Man. Man was his high and only title, and a higher cannot be given him."

* Justices weigh life in prison for juveniles who never killed. Whole bunch of them in Florida.

Yeah, I'm still a slacker. Also I had a flu? last month, and seem to have pneumonia now.

Scholar's Inn on 6th and College has a new offering, "Euro sandwiches" on baguettes, for $3.50. I tried two today: the basil tomato mozzarella, and the ham and swiss. Both were hot, with melted cheese. I'm sorry to say I wasn't thrilled by either. They weren't horrible, but the former was nothing compared to a insalata di Caprese, and the latter... well, probably wasn't helped by (a) my not being the biggest fan of Swiss cheese and (b) coming right after the mozzarella. I couldn't tell (or didn't attend) if the mozz was whole fresh or part-skim low-moisture pizza cheese.

Still, a $3.50 sandwich is something to keep in mind. There's a third variety, but I don't remember what.

Also they seem to have half-priced bread on Tuesdays.


When it comes to chicken, I prefer dark meat. When my parents made fried chicken, I went for the drumsticks. Probably originally because it was easier finger food, but also because it was juicier and tastier than dull white breast meat. When I make fried chicken, I just get a package of drumsticks. Lots of restaurants specialize in breast meat though, not to mention fast food. Happily, not all. Siam House, which to my fallible memory seems to have acquired a much more interesting menu since Valentine's Day, uses a mix of white and dark meat in its dishes. I've enjoyed pad thai, mussamum, some sort of curry, and #42 garlic stir-fry. Though the cook refused to mix the rice and curry for me when I ordered take out for anime club, where I wouldn't have plates; the hostess gave me a big extra styrofoam box so I could mix in that. I didn't like their chai but then I've never liked chai, I was just looking for a hot drink for the sickness.

Z&C, the little Japanese place on Kirkwood, has I'm pretty sure dark meat in its chicken udon; as I got sick I turned to the udon+eel roll special a lot.


Chow Bar's potstickers were enh, not that tasty and pretty thick pastry. Pork and garlic wasn't bad. Chicken satay was good; chinese pork rice was goodish but short on sauce so the rice was bland.

I was rather surprised and skeptical too. But see http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/10/obamas-prize-for-peace.html

* Non-proliferation work (he had a life before the Presidency)
* EPA regulating CO2 as a pollutant (Al Gore and the IPCC were previous winners.)
* Elevating diplomacy over military action, respecting the UN
* Stopping our torture programs

And while Obama himself would never bring this up, being a black man elected President in the US counts for a lot by itself. And not just among American blacks, a whole of the rest of the world's majority peoples went "!!!" The "leader of the free world" is no longer just white dudes. Given that the point is to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses it's not such a bad fit: worked to reduce nukes, promoted the UN, promoting fraternity by being himself at this time.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/011728.html#374066
is a bit interesting too.

If you order pizza here in Bloomington, breadsticks generally come too. I'm not used to this. Of course, my parents would order from foofy places like Eduardo's in Chicago. I don't remember breadsticks being standard at Caltech or in San Francisco. Is this a new thing, a Midwest thing, or a "Damien doesn't order specials with drinks and breadsticks" thing?

* New constitution in North Korea, dropping 'Communism' and enshrining Kim's role as leader. His father's role as president had been left "eternally vacant" in the 1998 constitution, not clear if that changed.
* In American dynastism, Liz Cheney carries on her father's advocacy of torture and fearmongering, along with not contesting an assertion that Obama isn't American.
* One thing about religions, they often introduce holidays for the poor. Maids in Jakarta get Ramadan off, with rich families having to cope with fetching their own glasses of water. Or check into luxury hotels.
* The standoff in Honduras continues, with the ousted President Zelaya having slipped somehow into the Brazilian embassy. I've been sympathetic to the 'coup', but closing radio stations and cracking down on civil liberties burns that up.
* Why is the Supreme Court hearing half as many cases as it used to?
* State Republicans want to contest a health insurance mandate via amending state constitutions. Unclear on the concepts of the supremacy clause or how health reform can work.

* Logicomix, a comic book about Bertrand Russell and the quest for certainty in mathematics.
* Modern miracles: helping the blind see.
* The new education fad: teaching executive function, aka self-control

Well, before that, a summary of Nixon's health reform plan. Pretty similar in spirit to Obama's, but more assertively defined, and maybe further to the left in helping the poor. The country may have moved to the left on gay, women, and black rights, but well to the right on economic issues. AFAIK *Truman's* attempt would have been Medicare for all, essentially, sweeping government insurance a la Canada or Australia.

* "freshwater" economist backlash. These are the "unemployment is voluntary" types if you haven't been keeping up. Chicago school, neo-Friedmanites (more radical than Milton himself.) Followup and dissection of their rage, with brief mention of their mistakes.

* 19th century globalization: the jute industry in Dundee Scotland, using Indian raw materials.

* Even the WTO agrees that carbon tariffs are an allowable and possible essential tool. But free market fundamentalists and fetishists won't.
* Review of a biography of Keynes.

* "Memories of the Carter Administration". Actually on the macroeconomic debate in the late 1970s. Robert Lucas claiming government policies couldn't affect recession or employment, Robert Barro expressing a negative interest in contradictory data. Someone asked him how he could reconcile his model with the severe recession taking place as he spoke. “I’m not interested in the latest residual,” Barro snapped.
** John Quiggin on the same subject. And, back in 2003,

In fact, it’s striking that there is now almost no academic discipline whose conclusions can be considered acceptable to orthodox Republicans. The other social sciences (sociology, anthropology, political science) are even more suspect than economics. The natural sciences are all implicated in support for evolution against creationism, and for their conclusions about global warming, CFCs and other environmental threats. Even the physicists have mostly been sceptical about Star Wars and its offspring. And of course the humanities are beyond the pale.

* Bankers are going straight back to the pay policies that contributed to the current crisis. "In this case populism is good economics." Obama, of course, gives few signs of actually being a populist.

* The low cost of saving the environment. Not a deep essay, but of interest is Even corporations are losing patience with the deniers: earlier this week Pacific Gas and Electric canceled its membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in protest over the chamber’s “disingenuous attempts to diminish or distort the reality” of climate change.
** The missing depth (blogs don't have word limits.) Even Greg Mankiw supports externalty (e.g. pollution) taxes.
** And more depth, graph and better explanation.

So, for some reason I fell out of posting much after my trip. Partly the move, partly... I don't know what. Time to sync back up.

The West Coast trip: we last left me in the Bay Area, having one day left. Monday was indeed spent at the California Academy of Science -- a line to get in but not too bad, then another line to get into the rainforest exhibit. That was fun: lots of plants, lots of birds and butterflies, and one you're in you're not rushed through, you can linger on the walkways. The exit is through the remodeled aquarium, starting with walking *under* the rainforest 'river', then exiting into the main multitank area. The aquaria were always one of the nicer attractions of the CAS -- sharks and coral reefs and penguins and all -- though the panoramic swim-around tank is gone. Lots of other CAS stuff is gone too -- the earthquake simulator, the minerals case, the butterflies cases. Two wings are devoted to climate change and evolution, with a higher placard to thingy ratio than I feel is proper. The stuffed African dioramas are still there, with a few live reptiles.

Shinier, and I didn't get to see the spiffy planetarium -- sold out already -- but I'm not sure it all is *better*. Cafeteria was expensive -- $3 for a pork bun -- but possibly good -- it was a *really good* pork bun.

I managed to organize a dinner at Ton Kiang, a rare dim sum for dinner place in the outer Richmond. Or not so rare, there seemed to be another one right next to it. Before that, I walked Golden Gate Park a bit, homesick (SF taking on the role of 'home'); I also met a young couple who were camping across the US or something. The road through (JFK road?) has bike lanes I don't remember, really wide ones too, like 60% of the road. Dinner was good: Dan and Blake and Jacque and Yani and Wei-Hwa and mates.

A friend I'd been out of touch with for years had been out of town for the weekend, but met my "I'm leaving at X" gambit with "I work in Berkeley at 9 tomorrow, I could meet you at 7". A lot earlier than I'm used to but I weighed sleep against old friend for a decade and friendship won, and I'm glad it did, esp. as she's not a great correspondent.

Portland

Then off north, to my host in Beaverton, some suburb to the west of Portland proper, and reminding me a lot of LA though she didn't think so. Wide busy roads, malls, long distances, tres depressing. Nice to see her again though. Wednesday I went to the Portland Zoo, then explored downtown a bit -- train seems to run north of downtown proper, e.g. of the busy skyscraper district. I crossed the river on one of the bridges, came back for dim sum with my host. Thursday I trained straight east, to explore Portland neighborhoods a bit, then doubled back for a really awesome classical Chinese garden in Chinatown (with somewhat less awesome tea shop) and a brief (hour) pilgrimage at Powell's, before meeting heron61 in person for the first time.

The Zoo station was wacky-cool, lots of science-type decorations, including a long core of something, and wall engravings like Pascal's triangle.

Possibly my strongest memory is of Marinepolis Sushiland, a floating sushi (kaiten-zushi, trays on a conveyor belt) chain. Silly-cheap by my standards: the most expensive tray was $3, and you could get tuna or salmon for $1.50-$2.00. In a sit-down restaurant here you'll likely pay $3 just for tamago nigiri (egg.)

Los Angeles

Just as SF let me take BART out of SFO, so I got to take public transit out of LAX, without insane bus rides. Actually, I recall Fanw's sister would take 2.5 hours to bus from Westwood to PCC, so I wonder if the train was any faster -- I took 2.5 hours, free shuttle to Green Line, to Blue Line downtown, to Red Line to Union Station, and finally the Gold Line to my stop, with a longer than guessed walk to my crappy motel. I'd been warned this was slow, vs. Flyaway shuttle straight to Union Station, but I wanted to try the pure transit experience. On the Green and Blue lines I was generally the only Anglo in sight, the others being blacks and Hispanics with a sprinkling of Asian.

The Westway Inn was weird. Claimed visitors not only needed permission but had a $10 charge per visitor. To discourage parties (across from PCC?) or prostitution? Typical crappy motel heater/AC unit, the ones with no hard temperature setting, just "hotter" and "cooler". OTOH, whee, way more spacious than Japan, and maybe even than the Motel 6 I was in here one night last winter, when desperate for a good night's sleep. Two rooms! Fridge!

As for time in LA, well, probably not too much to say in public; I got to see friends. John; John and family; John and family and friends, followed by Sarah and family (movie: "Moon", then remodeled Griffith observatory); new person off RPG.net, followed by another dinner gathering, aerolyndt and monty00 and K and others; finally a ride to LAX with aerolyndt.

I seem to be good at drawing together diverse interesting people in dinners, should do that more often.

Back

Of my housing choices I went with option #1. Laundromat is probably 6-7 minutes away; I'm been cycling clothes through the shower so have put off finding out for sure. Apartment is poorly designed in lots of ways, but the current landlord seems aggressive in fixing what they can. I'm finally off 2nd street! Been lazy about unpacking, though. Close to Bloomingfood's and the farmer's market, annoyingly far (12 minute walk) to Kroger's. I finally got lots of heirloom tomatoes here; not sure if they've gotten more popular or if I was better about getting to the market through August and September. Peach season seemed to end early, peaches were still around for a while but not as good.

Reading

(before trip) Gene Wolfe, book of the New Sun.
(after trip), 1491 (expansion of the article), Globalization and Its Discontents, Making Globalization Work, The Chinese Lake Murders (A Judge Dee fanfic by the translator.)

Links

tooth_and_claw assured me that my link dumps are appreciated, so I'll try to resume those. A couple of months worth will take some filtering and organizing, though, so not tonight.

Food

Someone's birthday dinner brought me to McAllister's tonight, a deli in Eastland Plaza near Border's. I had pastrami on rye with havarti, dark mustard, lettuce tomato onion and roasted red bell peppers. It was really really good -- juicy pastrami? $6.41.

So says Rep. King of Iowa, apparently frustrated that God's wrath has not yet descended upon the state.

A picture someone dug up as commentary

A bunch of links, in rough descending order of importance:

* His big article on the state of macroeconomics, and the intellectual bankruptcy leading up to the crisis. Somewhat old news if you've been following his columns and blog, but otherwise it's well worth reading if you want to make sense of the current world -- and the failure of supposed experts to make sense of it. Some points: Keynes wasn't about government takeover, but government intervention; Keynes had total contempt for financial markets, a second-guessed beauty contest; Milton Friedman wasn't as radical as his intellectual descendants, who now insist that people are unemployed because they want to be; "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
** Notes on the article
* Also important: how government stopped (probably) a second Great Depression.
* Soaring income inequality
* Republican crazy, where a 'moderate' talks about "death panels".
* Bush's $2.8 trillion of debt.

* Why the public option matters.
* Why individual insurance doesn't work

* The purpose of stimulus is to mitigate unemployment. Jobless 'recovery' means we're not done yet. Lack of marginal thinking about the stimulus -- it makes sense (if wrong) to believe the stimulus is bad, or that we should spend all the way back up to full employment. A partial stimulus, where we just limp along, is simply confused.

* Keynesian lesson of 1979 and 1970s

* The Blue Dogs don't make sense.
* Neither does Arthur Laffer, of Laffer Curve fame. Beware of the government taking over Medicare. Voodoo economics, hell, this is voodoo reality. And zombie Reaganomics

* America's small-business sector is undersized compared to, say, Sweden. Perhaps because of health insurance.

* Why is he getting death wishes over Swiss health care?
* The problem with modern journalism: horse race reporting. It's safe and easy to report the story about the story, not the actual story. Just have to echo what people say, not actually think.
** Which seems a good point to ask why Glenn Beck hasn't denied murdering a girl in 1990.
* On high debt and growth in the 1940s and 1950s, back in the post-New Deal era of strong government and high taxes. More on why the debt isn't a problem. And more. Um, in reverse chronological order, sorry.
* Blog on what he hopes Obama will say tonight.

I contacted Senator Lugar to thank him for supporting Sotomayor, and to reiterate support for health insurance reform; then I found what's on his main website. No link to the content, so I'll paste into a cut:

( Lugar says ailing economy is the wrong time for costly health care remedies )

Short form: a time when our employer-focused system is throwing millions of people and families out of both jobs and insurance is no time to try to fix the problem. Because of those deficits, you know!

I wrote back pointing out that by orthodox economic theory, recessions are just the right time for big government programs, especially when money is cheap (3% for 10 year bonds?), the reform plan isn't that big a financial burden (it's not like we're doing something crazy like extending Medicare to non-old people, we're just out to regulate the insurance companies better, and the employer mandate is specifically there to prevent employees from being dumped on a public option), and taxes are too low for a modern economy anyway. I suspect he's a lost cause, but if others want to speak up...

And our Democratic Senator, Evan Bayh, has apparently chosen the year of Obama winning Indiana to start voting a lot more conservative and hasn't committed to health reform. So he needs a fire lit under him too. He's up for re-election in 2010, by the way.

Went for the first time since 2006; like that time, just a Saturday run, Amy and I being driven up by a guy from Gamer's Guild. We should probably have left earlier than 11:30... Got there and through lines by 1:30, found that the dealer room closes at 6, so I decided to do that till 4, then look for games. Then I thought about relative frequency and value of RPG one-shots and board games and looked for RPGs to register for... for 4 I got into my 5th choice, a Wild Talents-derived mecha game (Metal Armor?). I later got into an Exalted game for 8, and, let's get this gripe out of the way, got ripped off: we'd bought $10 of generic tickets up front, because I knew I tended to use them and that they were refundable -- or that they had been in the past, and it sure sounded like they were still. But, after spending 8 hours on RPGs, they were useless, so we tried to get ours refunded. Nope! They're just "system credit" against next year. What if you never come to Gencon again? Tough luck, they keep the money. Bastards.

Dealer room: OMG I'd forgotten how big it was. It could have used more time, really. I thought about getting shiny dice, e.g. from Chessex or GameScience, but balked on site. I'd have bought Fudge dice but never saw them. Larry Elmore, of BECMI D&D fame, had a stand, and I was going to buy print but didn't right away, and couldn't find his stand again before I had to go to my game.

But, I found various books. On the expensive end, I got Starblazers Adventures, the space opera spin-off of Fate, and The Art of Exalted from the White Wolf stand. On the cheap end, I found someone selling Exalted 1e books for $2-5: Aspect Water and Air, Time of Tumult, and Dragon-Blooded. From SJG I got GURPS Egypt, Low-Tech, and Reign of Steel for $10 total.

The Wild Talents game... was a somewhat disorganized playtest, with a good a portion of the time spent by the GM soliciting advice on the rules. He works for the ORE company, and is developing this game. Amy ran into the problem of "my female Spock would logically run back to base at this point, but that's not so fun in a one-shot". I had a female Pretty One -- all the characters were run off anime stereotypes -- who could sort of have been Nanami from RGU but I dubbed her Esmerelda Spoor from "Crest of the Stars" and tried to play to match. Our characters had various semi-freeform powers, part Aspect part Stunt; one of mine was Ojousama Bitch-Laugh ("Oh ho ho ho"), which would have frozen enemies for a round, but our human opposition was wimpy and the non-human opposition, well, she didn't try. Also had a tactical planning dice-adding power like my Courtier in Boco's Weapons of the Gods Romance of the Three Kingdoms game, though the people I helped never rolled dice. Amy also found her character was possibly overpowered, what with 4 hard dice to spend at once, though we fought big monsters more than hordes of minions, for whom others powers would have fit.

Nothing epic, but had fun. One nice bit of his planning was that he had 6 archetypes -- Leader, Rogue, Pretty One, Spock, Average One, Lunk -- and male and female versions of each. Same basic stats, different personalities and powers. I was the only cross-player. (Other three players were male, BTW.)


The Exalted game was Dragon-Blooded, members of a Wyld Hunt going after Anathema. Nice turnaround! The other five players (including Amy and one other woman) all took Dynasts, I took a Water Aspect Immaculate who had the honor of organizing the Hunt. We butchered three Lunars and then three gryphons (Wyld creatures), but then I probably derailed the default plot when we ran into two Fair Folk nobles (who'd probably brought the Gryphons. Oh yeah, we'd killed hobgoblins outside the old temple/tomb, that's hardly worth mentioning.) There were reports and suspicions of Solars, and the nobles mentioned Abyssals as well, so my Immaculate got the nobles to help us hunt the Celestials. Fair Folk are low-priority Anathema. Carrot-stick of letting them leave, stick of challenging their Valor ("cowards?") carrot of the glory of fighting Solars.

But then we ran into the Solars and Abyssals all talking to each other. 3 of Each. As I put it, "we're outnumbered 8-6." Amy suspects if we'd fought the Fair Folk we'd have run into separate parties of Celestials. We talked, and found that the mortal Nellens satrap of Greyfalls who'd sent us out had invited the Fair Folk in and sent letters to the Celestials as well, apparently trying to arrange for mutual annihilation. We went back, lured him out with claims of orichalcum artifacts (technically true), and turned him over (to the people holding those orichalcum artifacts) and scurried home to take over Greyfalls and hunt Anathema some safer day.

Exalted combat seems an odd choice for one-shots for me, but still, it was fun. Though the Lunar fight practically ended before the martial artists could get their Forms up; luckily we managed to maintain them to the gryphon fight a short distance away. All the DBs were like Speed 3 or 4 on their basic actions. I think the GM skipped DV penalties from actions, everyone was getting into flurries more than was really wise. Well, except me. He was stingy with the 2-die stunts, though I got the first one of the game.

I bet no one reading this knows which comic I took "peeromancy" from. Anyway, procrastinating on the housing search has been less painful than I feared at first. 1BRs are pretty much gone, but some nice 2BRs are out there. Bunch of tradeoffs.

1) Right in the middle of downtown, great location. Most expensive, $800 with discount, $900 with a roommate. Huge, over 1000 square feet; the larger bedroom is about the size of my apartment, it felt like. Laundry is 4 minutes away. :( Pretty close to a friend. The only place currently occupied, so I'd have to talk to my current landlord about staying around long enough. Don't rent to undergrads. Not that much counter-space.

2) A 1BR in a duplex, which I found by looking for signs. Actually very close to where I am now, probably a bit more into the quiet zone. Laundry hookup, but if I want coin machines I'd have to haul to where I do now, from a bit further away but closer than #1. Second most expensive, $750, and not that big, though has the high ceilings and windows of my place, and a much nicer kitchen.

3) Back to Cedarview! Off on the east side. Kind of isolated, though that's good for noise. Could come furnished at $800, or un- at $700, or mixed (I've got a bed, but their couch is nice.) Good kitchen

4) Back to Bart Villa! $645, utilities included except for socket electricity. I know I fit well in those places since I came out of one. Pet friendly policy, which is bad if there's a loud dog. Run by Deer Park, which has a fair number of tenant complaints. East side.

5) College Mall, also run by Deer Park. Discounted down to $595, utilities not included. Remodeled, unlike Bart Villa. Kitchen and shower faucets had quirks. East side.


The latter 3 are all on 2nd, which I've been on my whole time here. They also have basement laundries, unlike the first two. 4 and 5 are cheapest, but have the sketchiest landlord. 1 is most expensive, but biggest and probably best location. Perhaps the worst kitchen, though still a big improvement on now, and there's room for a table for extra working surface. All places have decent shower pressure, though maybe not as high as I have now, though 1 was willing to swap out.

Bombay House has $5.99 lunch buffet now, a big drop from the $11 during the school year. Despite the tandoori chicken last time having no actual tandoori flavor, I went back. My first impression was that the chicken was still pretty bland. This impression is pretty vague, because it was quickly swamped by the smell of chicken I would throw away rather than cooking. Mild, but present. I told the waiter, he said the chef said it was fine, I was offered another piece, which still smelled bad. I pigged out on vegetarian dishes and left. I swallowed a piece before the taste and smell really hit me; if I get sick in the next couple of days, I know where I'm placing the blame.

Bloomington Transit (the buses) had resisted taking an atheist ad, but has capitulated before a court case.
http://inatheistbus.org/2009/07/27/campaign-prevails-against-bt-in-free-speech-lawsuit/

Went to the bike store today, thinking it was time to replace my 7 year old bulb-based headlight that doesn't do that much other than announce my existence. (Which is more than most bicyclists around here bother with, jerks.) There were a bunch of Blackburn lights, advertising long lifetimes, but no brightness measurements, just "extremely bright" or "superbright". So I got a Trek LED saying 225+ candles. I don't know what that means in practice but if I'd done some research I would, and I support giving numbers. I was told by the staffer that any of these lights would just be for self-visibility, not lighting up the road. Which seemed odd, since even my old light does that a bit, for a short distance, with the light down. (Of course, I generally had a choice between that and being able to illuminate stop signs.)

Yeah, he was wrong. I went for a spin just now and HOLY LEDS BATMAN. I'm sure it's no car light but it can certainly illuminate obstacles at some distance, and as well as lighting up anything remotely reflective from quite a ways away. It's awesome. And almost too bright to look at directly, I almost worry if it can mess with drivers like hi-beams do. The one thing is that it is pretty directional, so stop signs can pass in and out of visibility as my fork wobbles, but hey. And I think it claims some hours of life, whereas memory is that my old light would start draining after 40 minutes at full power.

I also got a lesson in 7-year old stuff. Had trouble getting my old light off, like the screw was stuck, and some rubber padding between it and the handlebar had decayed a lot. I also replaced my helmet -- had forgotten about duct taping the chin strap back on, and hadn't noticed a big crack in the temple regiong. Ended up getting a similar model, the only one with my size head and a visor. Trek bike, Trek helmet, Trek light. Overheard a conversation with someone who'd gotten a road bike and a flat, in that order; he said his Trek mountain bike hadn't ever had a flat. Neither have I, with my 40 pound Trek 800 tank. Can't remember if I ever had the store replace the tires for fear of them wearing down; I might have once, but might have been my old bike...


Oh yeah: walking home from swing dance I saw a bicyclist with, of course, no lights. He did have his cell phone in his hand, and I don't know if he was texting while biking or using it as a makeshift photon source.