Black Dog Blog

Archive for the ‘miscellany’ Category

My brother's parents¹ keep a tiny weekend house in the Lake District. We went there with a couple of his other friends overnight yesterday. As it happened, I hadn't been there before (not often invited, usually busy).

During the course of the afternoon I proved myself the most adept fire-builder — which was amusing, since two of them claimed first-hand experience lighting fires, whereas I had to approach the thing completely from theory. Nevertheless, the thing lit up at my hands, and a good job it did, because it was below freezing overnight. I also beat an electric pump at inflating mattresses. Old-fashioned footpower for the win?

Also, we melted the nozzle off one of the air mattresses with a hairdryer. On reflection, when I suggested the idea, I should have specified that the thing be set to cold air.

The sheer number of stars in the night sky, out there as we were among sheep-infested hills six miles from the nearest village, was very nice to see.

We got in a little stroll this morning; just ten or twenty minutes or so, because two of the party were not best suited to the exercise. Yes, turns out some people are unfit even compared to me. n00bs!

I seemed to spend a lot of time teaching people things², ranging from how fire works ("small stuff burns faster and hotter; the big logs are the ones that will last all evening, but they need to be much hotter to catch fire, so we have to start with small…" …at which point I trail off, unable to compete with Nuts Magazine, and just get the damn thing going. Fire. Fiiiiire. Pretty pretty fire) to how sheep work ("why is that one's leg bright orange? Was it born like that?" "At a guess, I'd say it was antibiotic dip." … "You don't actually think sheep speak a language, do you?" "Not a syntactic one, but if you mean can they recognise bleats? Absolutely"). (Yeah, I don't know either.)

So, yes, turns out some people know even less about countryside than I. Pah! n00bs, I say!

Also. In general, much as I like 1960s music and classic rock, I've heard enough Magic-FM, Smooth-Radio, Late-Night-Love-Letters, Stuff-Even-Radio-2-is-Too-Embarrassed-to-Play utter shite over this day and night to last me quite some years.³ I had to sneak some headphones on and blast some DragonForce during the car journey or I would have gone quite, quite mental.

¹ Yes, brothers with different parents. It's an honorary thing. No blood-letting was involved.

² "The only one who could ever reach me was the geek-talkin' sonuva teacher man", etc.

³ "Do you not think it's choonage, Herms? You biiiitch!" Sadly, my tolerance of other people's music is not reciprocated when I should want to put on Symphony X.

• Hmm, can I scrounge up the missing 11 pence I need for bus fare tonight? Well, we've got a few sofas in the office that I can check. #

• #vss "You may leave if you like," said the senior monk, opening the door to freedom. Weft blinked in the light and scooted back to his cell. #
• #vss "No chocolate shavings? I don't understand." "But I always have soy." Commuters milled confusedly. "How can we have coffee without?" #
• That was 'freedom' for @kevbuk and 'middle-class deprivation' for @meeware. Hope you liked. #vss #requests #
• #vss In the dead of night came an "ow!" Lucy clutched the crucifix under her pillow. "Who leaves an end table there?" groaned the vampire. #
• #vss She knew the angels wouldn't accept her until she turned her nose inside out. She tried and tried, bled and bled, her nails encrusted. #

I woke up at some time after 11:00 this morning in bed with someone strange wrapped around me.

However, because I don't drink and I spent New Year's Eve with trusted friends at a safe location within walking distance of home: it was my own bed, I had a clear head, the house was secure, nobody had soiled themselves and the strange individual was the family cat¹, who had been at home listening to Jools Holland and Radio 2 for most of the night in order to block out the fireworks.

I don't own a fighter jet yet, but still, I call that a win for New Year. Happy 2010 to you all, my dear sweet little bitches.

¹I have the aforementioned chattel thoroughly alpha'd and well trained, which is why he woke me at 11:00 by snuggling up next to my head and begging wantonly for a tummy tickle, instead of at 05:00 by sitting on my chest and drooling into my eye, which is what he does to his supposed 'owner'.

Alluring Swiper realised now that attacking an entire crew of pirates had been somewhat ambitious.
Sankmarray: Clouded Hearts (section two of about five). © 2009 Herm Baskerville, all rights reserved.

In other words: Part Two is complete, yay!

As of tonight, I've finished rewriting the short story I wrote last year, which is forming Part One of Sankmarray-the-Novel. Yep, the cheaty part is over. We're now in uncharted waters.

And to prevent myself from being show-stoppingly nervous about continuing to write in said uncharted waters, I made sure to write the first bit of Part Two before I stopped.

I'm now at 11,938 words. *writerly glow*

I'm aiming for roughly 2000 words a day, i.e. a 60k word book (because I hate messy numbers like 1667, and anyway Mews turned out at just over 60k, so there).

By that projected total and my current word count, I should be a fifth of the way through the story now. Since I've only just reached the end of Part One, and I don't know how long the other parts will turn out (or even how I'll end up dividing the rest of the plot outline into sections yet), I have no idea if this is accurate. It feels awfully odd that my 'short' story, with a lot of crap taken out and only a couple of thousand words added overall, is technically a fifth of a novel. But, well, to be honest, I suspect this is going to be a rather long book.

The first of two books, I remind myself…

I'll shortly be contacting the people who offered to alpha read and probably have no idea what they're letting themselves in for (er, well, Anke and Vespers probably do, so they really do have no excuse whatsoever). For the rest of you, there's a second excerpt up now at my NaNoWriMo profile. This one shows a little more of the worldbuilding, and a tiny bit of Roseeye, the piratical first mate, of whom I'm rather fond.

So, it's official: I'm doing NaNo this year (my profile), and it happens I have next week booked off from work (having had a lot of leave days to use up) to get a good head start.

My outline is shaping up but there are huge blank areas, and I'm no good at changing plots on the fly; in order to write easily, I have to have a rough outline nailed down. By tomorrow night. This is where you can help – and all you have to do is fill in the blank:

Well, Herm, knowing that you're going to write a very silly novel about pirates and ninjas (and dinosaurs and robots), I would be very disappointed if _____________ doesn't happen at some point!

When I finalise the outline, I'll make an honest attempt at working in all of your ideas that don't clash with what I've already decided. If they don't fit in the first book of the duology, they still might get into the second (particularly if they're ideas related to the dinosaur-men and the robots).

This is your chance to weasel your silly ideas into the Sankmarray Duology! You'll be doing us all a favour: me, by helping with the plot and giving me a challenge, and yourself and the rest of the world, by making it more fun to read.

Read the rest of this entry »

Cat miaow music video – surely the only one in existence that doesn't suck.

I spent me mornin' caressing an eager young thing's rump.

Finished by slippin' five pieces o' eight into her collection box, if ye knows what I mean.

Yarrrrrrrrr!

I found a really interesting article on 'camp' (as an adjective) linked in the comments of someone else's journal. I finally put some time aside to read it:

Susan Sonntag: Notes on Camp

My reactions follow, all jotted as I read. You should read the article and form your own opinions first.

Now, I don't care for 'camp' as a whole, so don't expect any coherent thoughts and opinions from me here. I probably would fit in in some ways with a 'queer' (hate that word) way of looking at things, though, so I'm definitely interested to read on…

"The more we study Art, the less we care for Nature."
- The Decay of Lying

An offhand quote that caught my eye. It could be in a nutshell why I don't like art (or, rather, why I think of myself as someone who doesn't like art. The other reason being school art lessons), and why I am less and less likely to like any individual artwork the more it deviates from the strictly realistic, or at least the methodically representational.

(Yes, even if it portrays something that doesn't exist, it could have the courtesy to look right.)

As a taste in persons, Camp responds particularly to the markedly attenuated and to the strongly exaggerated. The androgyne is certainly one of the great images of Camp sensibility. [...]

Allied to the Camp taste for the androgynous is something that seems quite different but isn't: a relish for the exaggeration of sexual characteristics and personality mannerisms.

Read the rest of this entry »

I'm dreading seeing today's Twitter digest. XD I got far too into the "competitive geek baiting" craze that was going round yesterday evening. Fantastic fun, and I even got a bite when I mentioned SEO and another when I dissed Dominic Armato. (No deed is too wretched for my evil evilness.)

However, I'm the only tweeter I saw who got onto Gilbert and Sullivan. This is sad. I thought G&S were as geek as Monty Python. Are we raising a new generation with no knowledge of their geek heritage?

This will not do. So, young ones, get your ears round this. Maths jokes in opera. With subtitles. I love subtitles.

Also, this. Geek hero ondashore! (Sadly, no subtitles. Frankly, it goes too fast for 'em.)

This is called a "patter song". Gilbert and Sullivan were famous for putting in particularly fast, intricate and witty songs for their comic baritone singers. They are often sung just after the character is introduced, so that the moment the patter baritone steps onstage he's met with raucous applause from fans who know what's coming up.

I seem to have become addicted to posting 'microfiction' on Twitter. This must be how they get you sucked in. #Brains.

Question: Would you like, dislike or be indifferent to seeing my Twitter updates mirrored on my blog (probably in a single post per day from some tool like LoudTwitter)?

If I found a thing that would only collect and post updates that contained certain user-defined hashtags, I'd use that for sure.

I get my two week placement with FM&T soon. Looking forward to it. I think they want to keep me on for longer.

Seen a cool video that will interest Altivo and other fur-types.

That's randomly got me looking at paw glove tutorials on YouTube. I'm not a furry or fursuiter and don't have any interest in the whole full-body itchy-plastic-fuzz deal, but I would love a properly awesome pair of paw gloves with proper pads, like so (but Black Dog, or Grey Dog, instead of Red Fox).

I saw some leatherwork gloves that are nice-looking, but far too fetishy and immobile. I'm nervous about my manual dexterity or movement being impaired in any way. (The shoes are awesome, though.)

I suppose fingerless fursuit gloves would be object-defeatist. I do like my fingerless gloves, though. Shame it's too hot at the moment to wear them.

I'm pleased to report that I have seen not one, but two Aibos, and that I still want one.

Aside possibly from hypothetical robot pangolins and Razer from Robot Wars¹, robot dogs are the undisputed coolest thing in existence.

I've also witnessed a Pleo attacking a Sony Rolly.

I want one of these.

Seeing Bill Bailey tonight, woo! I bought Slen a ticket for his birthday.

¹ OK. Dead Metal is awesome too. I so want the thing.

omg omg omg omg omg omg omgeekgasm.

squoo.

About blinking time…

GRRRR

'Ill' worker fired over Facebook

The death of 100% (mostly-stupid article about something that truly annoys me)

Appeal for chocolate volunteers gets – surprise! – 1,500 replies

Berlin rejects backtracking!

If I have this right, the choice was between compulsory school ethics lessons (the current policy) and the option not to attend ethics lessons and to take religious lessons (already exist as voluntary, occur out of school hours, poorly attended) instead. I find the idea of opting out of normal life and taking a closed scripture study group instead slightly disturbing.

So, Berlin, even though it was actually rejected by default because none of you turned up to vote, have a sanity cookie on me.

Rare albino buffalo seen in Kenya

h4x! A /b/ user explains (and claims credit for) their flooding of the Time Magazine 100 poll.

Oh for a personal army of these guys. In before not.

Twitter your prayer says Cardinal

Post your tweet ideas in the comments. 140 characters or less, must begin @our-father (or @anubis, @suitov, @narasimha or other deity of your choice. Can't speak for the others, but I don't monitor my Twitter account).

Currently enjoying this Easter-themed radio interview [MP3] from Landover Baptist Church. PTL!

edit: Saw this advert on TV and liked it (what, an arrangement of This Little Light of Mine that I didn't hate?!), and the Vimeo page adds something special to it.

You may have heard the origins of "geek" as a circus sideshow performer and wondered "what's dentally decapitating live chickens have in common with sitting in darkened bedrooms?"

"Geek" in the carnival sense is supposedly derived from "geck", an object of derision or a dupe. That makes things a bit clearer when we fast forward to "geek" in the '90s sense of someone socially unskilled and unpopular.

Anyway, what's made me happy today is the discovery that Shakespeare used my species' name. Here it is, in Cymbeline 5:4, in which the ghost of the hero's father has a good old complain to Jupiter about how the lying Iachimo stirred up trouble between the hero and his wife:

Why did you [Jupiter] suffer [permit] Iachimo,
Slight thing of Italy,
To taint his nobler heart and brain
With needless jealosy;
And to become the geck and scorn
O' th' other's villany?

Jupiter is not one to take constant cadaverous carping lying down, and appears in high aquiline dudgeon to scold the complaining ghosts and send them packing. Gotta love Shakespeare.

So, geeks, the "geck and scorn" of villainous others. Rather good, I feel. It doesn't excuse the chickens, though. There's no excuse for that, not even if you're Ozzy.

If you're a Wikipedia editor (or a member of other Wikimedia projects) and have a preference on GFDL vs Creative Commons as applied to Wikimedia content, please go and vote on their proposed licensing change. (Note that you'll need to accept cookies, and it may take a little while to redirect you to the secure vote.)

Personally I'm strongly in favour, both being very keen on Creative Commons and instinctively disliking and distrusting the use of the GFDL for anything other than its original intended application (software documentation). I have never understood how to use a GFDL-licensed photo, for example, and many such exist on Wikimedia Commons. (I take the only honourable course, which is not to use them.)

Note that the Creative Commons licence in question is CC-BY-SA, so still a copyleft ('viral') licence. They have good pages explaining everything, which I recommend you read before voting.

I have conflicting feelings on copyleft licences. For example, I've been cautious and banned the use of anything virally licensed at Pro, other than usage that unequivocally comes under fair dealing law in the UK, because we can't and won't comply with the requirement that we release all our stuff under the same licence. Our copyright, simplistically worded as it is (which is actually for legal protection, because I'm not a lawyer and you can get into all sorts of not-so-hilarious scrapes if you try to write like one), isn't compatible with copyleft.

But aside from the occasional headache copyleft stuff causes me, I'm keen on the principle of anyone licensing their things as freely as they feel is appropriate and I don't consider the licence restrictions unfair. People don't have to let you use their stuff at all and if they let you do so with provisos, that's generous. You don't like, don't use!

Class. The Google doodle of the day celebrates St George's Day and Shakespeare's birthday in one.

More about Saint George, with fun details about the dragon on page 3 (disclosure: that page was compiled by me).

Having no idea it was St G's day today, on the way to work I saw a typical-looking red builderish van flying a George Cross and I have to admit my first thought was "Well, he's not necessarily racist…" Sad.

Why can't Happened To Get Born In England Pride be like Happened To Get Born Gay Pride? Gay pride marches don't necessarily imply that everyone born anything else is rubbish, so why in the case of nationality do we have to have twerps like the BNP fouling everything up? *sigh*

I and others are amused by the whole idea of this Turkish tribune who never visited England and whose spurious claim to fame took place in Libya. You've got racist twerps waving his flag with abandon while, in the words of a colleague, "if they met the real guy in a pub, they'd have bottled him and had him deported!"

If anyone cared a whit for us punsters, George would have been called John, because "St. John" as an English forename is pronounced "singeon". Ssssmokin'.