A Simple Way To Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work

I sunk the better part of the last two days into Baldur's Gate. Yesterday I found myself wrapped up enough in it that, while riding on the T, I continued to feel real existential dread over my decision to accept a ranger and mage into my party over a probably stronger cleric. (The game limits your party size to six characters, so when you make new friends who wish to join you, you must kick people out. The dialogue strongly implies that the game will give you opportunities to reunite with these ousted characters later on, though.) Thankfully, I'm at a good break point right now, having completed the first dungeon (along with a goodly number of side-quests), and confident in knowing where I'm supposed to go next, thus not leaving me slavering for More Carnage. Watch as I Take Out The CD and Put It Away For Now.

Meanwhile, in the world outside of my head, things move along. Matt Sargent, arguably the most powerful voice in the world of Perl & XML, has responded the book draft, um, a little too late for our tastes, but there you go. We (which is to say I, assuming Erik is still feeling overburdened) now have today to decide whether it merits changes drastic enough to pull the book from production. I have not read it yet. I do this thing now.

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First I say that last night was cool. Went to the MFA to see Outstandingly Entertaining Short Films, in a party led by cthulhia and populated by a sizable subset of the usual cthonic posse. I was nervous about seeing "Bullet in the Brain", because I had heard the original short story read on the radio show "Selected Shorts", and as the title suggests it involves, um, massive neurological trauma, which is a squicking point for me. I ended up enjoying the very nice film, of course, though I question the filmmaker's decision to flesh out the main character a little more with an introduction that makes him seem more contemptible. Was it meant to cushion the blow? Shrug.

There are no photographs of me wearing the 5,000 admission collar clips that cthulhia pinned on me as we wandered the museum, picking them up off the floor as we admired ahht. Sorry. magid thought that it looked like an urban interpretation of a shark's teeth necklace.

I can't believe Arisia is tomorrow. I admit to feeling a bit of trepidation, like I'm severely underprepared. Only a bit, since there's nothing for me to prepare, in reality, aside from following the orders of Fearless Warren Leader Cthulhia (this is not to imply that the boston-warren has just one Fearless Leader, if indeed it has any at all, but for all things relating to Boston cons she nonetheless fills the role very nicely).

The major similarity between this year and last year will be seeing my hero (even though I haven't communicated with him in, er, a year) Zarf again, and playing many many many games with he and many many other people, spreading the good Looney Lab news to all who will listen. The major difference is that I'll be there for all three days, I'll know people besides cthulhia (who herself is also a new person of a sort, in that she is a closer friend now to me than she was even just a year ago, when I, a trembling newbie to this whole area, spent the con clinging to her like a scared baby monkey), several friends from outside the boston-warren or either of the Circle Js will be in attendance, and I may actually attend some of the convention stuff outside of the gaming. Wow.

I'm still telling myself I'll be able to get some book-work in. Uh-huh.

I couldn't have asked for a better weekend. Thanks to everyone I mentioned in the last several entries, and alsoqueue, Kit, and magid. And queue's hat. You all rock, and so does Boston. (I told Boston this, at the end of the fireworks.)

After helping them cheer for the fuzzy, fuzzy cthulhia, who unfortunatley could not hear us from her place in the parade due to the tintinabulation all around, the hat and I made our solitary way to N&M's, where a Circle N member, posted on the front steps specifically to watch for visitors while the masters of Morgul were out buying burritos, failed to recognize me due to the giant hat consuming most of my head. I also didn't really recognize her, though I had no excuse. (Actually, I used the hat as an excuse as well, though we all knew that was pretty lame.) Then Noah rounded the corner, and we were all kind of embarrassed. Blah! But it was OK. The four of us killed Dr. Lucky and stopped Devil Bunny (I also got to hear the My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult song about devil bunnies -- more pointers dereferenced), and then the remainder of CircN dropped by, and much out-hanging was had until things got all palindromic around midnight.

The T ride home was the drunkest ever, though given the wide variety of drunk people the world has to offer, I could have done far worse than those sharing the car with me home. Lame, but happy, not hostile.

Tomorrow promises to be filled with not just more shoulder-rubbing with my wacky pals, but full-on world collision as representatives from circles N and J(s) might meet for the first time. I'm a little nervous, though I know it'll all be good.

Change of plan:

Before I rewrite that essay, I've got to talk to some people. Jon suggested, as part of his critique, that I have some conversations with Lab denizens, which will not only give me a more clear picture of the Lab, but also give me some some essential people-pointers I can weave into the next draft.

I said "I'm doomed," and he replied, "No, not at all; just write $PROF1 (and maybe $PROF2 and $PROF3) and tell them that you're thinking about becoming a grad student, and would like to meet some people in their groups. They'd be happy to show you around."

I repreated this to my housemates, both of whom have experience in grad school and MIT, and they matter-of-factly "well, yeah"ed at me.

This still seems like such a strange concept, but clearly I've got to change my stance from passive formality to aggressive curiousity. It demands me to be social, to initiate dialogues, and this is very very difficult for me. But: I wrote $PROF1 an email last night (three small paragraphs that took as many hours to compose), and will write the others after taking a nice long brainsoak in their respective websites. More difficult is an event going on tomorrow at the Lab that Jon forwarded me an email about, with the implication that I quietly attend. If I do go, I'll probably have the opportunity to try cornering $PROF1 there. But, ohh, I hate doing that to people, no matter how friendly they are (and this fellow has a reputation of being among the friendliest). This is part of the reason why I dropped out of journalism (even after getting a Bachelor's degree in it); I just don't like imposing on people, even in the slightest.

OTOH, I really do want to set things in motion. And once I get over the hard part of starting a dialogue, I can really start to shine. So.

Meanwhile, best buddy Cthulhia, who is also The Devil, has taken the liberty to ping three Lab folk who intersect with Cthulhia-level social circles, letting them know of my aspirations. Hmm!

The three point five weeks between now and the application deadline. We'll see what happens.

A lot of stuff happened over the weekend. Cthulhia described it adequately. It was an interesting adventure, but I'm sad that one member of the party was in significant physical pain throughout. She still seems to be alive and active so I guess she's getting better. I'll see her and many others for GAMING TONITE. Happy rabbits.

There is some weird stuff going on, things I wouldn't want everyone to read, and which a month ago I would have posted here, but I've more or less blown my cover since then. I guess I'll make it a friends-only post, if I make a post at all, even though the number of LJ friends I have is WEE. (If any of my anonymous (but RL friend) readers would like an access code, please bark at me. Note that this will do little more than grant you read access to emotionally gushy posts, so this might not actually be a feature.)

Just now I found myself wondering what Arguable Ex's POV would be, and pondered getting her onto LJ. Instead of sending her mail. ?!

So am I just going to use LJ now and drop my own website's blog? Huh huh huh? I have to say that the multi-user aspect is addictive, even if I dont' use it much. I'm still allegedly working on my own blogging software, and I still think it's cool as shit, but there's so much to get done first. Hum hum hum.

I'll figure something out.

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Previous post explained: two jobs ago, at MINT, we all agreed that correct protocol for discovering that someone had left themselves logged in to an unattended terminal involved sending them mail from themselves, with the content of "I once ate a cheeseburger the size of my head." (CC:ing this mail to other parties for further embarrassment was optional.) This arguably extends to people who leave cookie-laden browsers laden where visiting fingergepokey friends can reach, so I encouraged Cthulhia to go ahead and add that sentence once she had already 0Wn3D my journal.

This house officially Wins. I did good by coming here, and have said as much to the preinstalled peeps, with whom I seem to be swimming swimmingly. Charles acknowledges my skill at memetic boxing, and Carla invited me into her GURPS Discworld campaign. We've all played the official house game of Lost Cities many times, and we chat and share food and coffee and do this and that with respective other friends as much as you might expect, and yes indeedy my Social bar is perhaps greener than it's ever been. Even the cat seems to think I'm OK.

So yeah. Props to cthulhia for encouraging my move here, both in advising me and in speaking in my favor to the residents. I am a heppy heppy ket.

Neighborhoodishly, I didn't realize how quiet the surroundings are until my first or second night here, when I heard a very distant emergency vehicle siren and realized that it was all the traffic I could hear at the time. How different from the Medford/Highland intersection of my last apartment! This despite the fact that there's so much good stuff in walking distance; Trader Joe's 5 minutes thisaway, Bread & Circus 7 minutes thataway, and Central Square with its T station and coffee shops is but 10 minutes up yonder. Compare with my east Somerville place, where I had an array of convenience stores to pick from, and that was that.

Driving seems a puzzle. Cambridgeport is more or less griddish, but every day a random selection of roads are blocked off by construction equipment, making the neighborhood streets an ever-changing labyrinth. As for Mass Ave, it's just as confusing during the day as it is at night, but it rewards those with cool heads with as many chances to loop back and try again as they need, until they finally bang into their heads the pattern of which lanes to occupy when, so as not to get prematurely flung off at any of several flinging-off points. I have come to the conclusion that Massachusetts Avenue is not a single road, but a collective organism made of lots of smaller roads, each with their own personalities, who have nonetheless decided to band together under a single name. Learning and accepting this makes navigating it a bit easier, for me.

There is a dishwasher, a concept so alien that even after being introduced to it I refused to accept its existence and washed the dishes once by hand anyway before thinking: hm. Charles has since educated me on dishwasher protocol, which I appreciate.

Apparently I am alone among the three in using the house phone line, so all phone bills will go to me until I finally get around to nabbing a cell phone, at which point, Charles figures, we may as well cancel the thing.

Despite all this talk of assimilation, I still haven't actually moved in yet. The landlords return this weekend, allegedly... I'll go research this now. Wish me luck.

Not only did terrorists make me lose my job, but they're also making me paranoid about my halloween costume, conceived in August, being regarded in poor taste. Black humor is as popular[1] as ever, but black humor about nuclear weapons might not be, with some especially jittery people... and the current atmosphere (I am not going to name my band "Credible Threat", now, if I ever was) is turning many otherwise rational friends into borderline panicmonkeys.

I filtered the idea past cthulhia, and she seems to think it's terribly funny, though maybe I misunderstood her and it's actually just terrible. Was she laughing ha-ha-funny, or laughing ha-ha-defense-mechanism? Well, we'll see what the crowd thinks, won't we.

Anyway, that part of the costume is just a button, which I can remove should people react in a squirrelous fashion. I'll still be wearing the deely boppers I bought today at Jack's Joke Shop, and everyone loves deely boppers, in peace or war. Boy, did I luck out... there was only one pair left with spheres at the ends of the springs, instead of stars or hearts, which just wouldn't work on a superevolved cockroach.

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I am in the middle of the move to Chez Charlas, at least as far as packing and cleaning up goes. My parents have chosen to insinuate themselves upon the scene, driving down from Maine and camping out in a Medford hotel for a couple of days, and those who know about me and my parents (including readers of Weblog A) would also know why this makes me go mumble, mumble. However, there's not much for them to meddle in, this instance, since I've already covered all the major details of this operation; it's merely theirs to insist on pushing me aside while they take over the task of my Highland Avenue evacuation.

And, to be honest, I welcome their help. While I do think I could have pulled off every aspect of this move on my own (well, with generous help from local friends, too), my parents are undeniably experts at all forms of managing stuff, and if they want to be adamant about helping me, I won't bar the door against them -- that would really be the immature thing to do, in this case. So tonight I went to the Star Market holding a list of tinctures and notions for total apartment scouring that mom instructed me to obtain before they returned early tomorrow morning. La.

Meanwhile, trouble has arisen in the form of a slippery landlord, who is running for office and very difficult to track down; Charles, bless him, is trying very hard to make the house me-ready by the first, a task made more difficult by my waiting until only a few days ago before I confirmed with him my desire to take the offered room (I spent much of November holding out for a room near Davis Square, and failed), but I can't start trucking boxes in until I sign some papers, and that can't happen unless the landlord's present. Charles fears that the next window of opportunity might be Halloween night. I gave him permission to summon me from the party if necessary. We'll see, we'll see.

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[1] By "popular", I also mean "forced and lame", in many circumstances. Jim to me on the phone, after he confirms that he's sending me a package I requested: "We're also sending you some anthrax. Yuk yuk yuk." Okay.