The Ninth Strange Day

I need to think of a good “backronym” for nerd.

So. Balticon is coming up really fast and it looks like we’ll be there on Saturday, at least in the afternoon, evening, and night. Dealers’ room, art show, and masquerade. No staying over. Not with the puppy at home. That makes me sad, but at least one day is better than nothing.

We’re going to Shore Leave this year for the first time! Again, just on the Saturday. I mean, how much time does one need to stalk David Hewlett…. I mean…. Wait, no. That is what I meant.

Moving on!

A long time ago this journal was at http://dataangel.net. I still have the domain (obviously) and have turned it into a “portal” of really useless information - feeds and things. No reason, except because I could.

Okay, it’s sort of a portal. It pulls through to a journal on Blogspot that is the actual portal, because editing the layout to include the RSS feeds and things was easier that way. I’m a nerd, but I’m a lazy nerd. I’m also a lazy nerd with a feeling of satisfaction because it actually worked.

Now if I could feel smugly satisfied about “Ace of Wands”, I’d really be getting somewhere. The deadline looms for that, and I’m about 60% of the way to the end. If you don’t see/hear from me much between now and next weekend, you can assume I’m writing my fingers to the bone.

Last (and least), the rental car is due back on the 21st. I’m not really sure what I’m going to do about getting places after that. I refuse to take the light rail. I’ll probably just have to get another rental car at the full rate. Hopefully this time I can get something that’s actually sensible, because the Equinox is killing me on gas. Since the first of May I’ve spent $150 on gas. With the Prius, I think I spent $150 in gas over the first three months.

A fan-made “Stargate: Atlantis” opening using the same style (and music) as “House, MD.” Nice!

The Passively Multiplayer Online Game

It’s a social network/link sharing site with a sort of Steampunk feel. You take “missions” which are basically tours of websites that someone’s linked together. You can create your own missions, leave “mines” behind that “detonate” when another PMOG person comes across them (no damage is done to your computer or your browser - just to the PMOG stats). You can leave teleports to other sites (often with little notes that indicate if you like the site you’re on, you’ll love the teleport destination, too).

“Badges” are awarded based on your surfing behaviours. Like for going so many hours without hitting Google, or having so many return visits to a particular website over a span of time.

More detailed information is here.

Yeah, it’s kind of like advertising disguised as a game. Yeah, you can do a lot of the same thing just by trolling through Digg or del.icio.us. But this is cute dammit.

This is the part where you say things like “OMG THEY’RE TRACKING YOU ON THE WEB AND MIGHT BE STEALING YOUR INFORMATION”. Me, I’mma go make me some rivals.

There are a bunch of movies out or about to be released that I want to see. This summer actually has a lot to offer. I’m not at all ashamed to admit that I want to see the X-Files movie. And yeah, even Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Don’t judge me!

The Cure
9 May 2008
Patriot Center
Fairfax Virginia

Please invest in a few more street signs? We got lost going to the Patriot Center. What should have been a seven minute drive turned into half an hour. It took about 40 minutes to go back to the hotel.

MapQuest is partly to blame. I really think some of their distance estimates are based on “as the crow flies” and not “as the road twists”. The fact that there weren’t a lot of signs that said things like “this way to 29S/50W” didn’t help the situation. Especially since we were on what looked like a twisty, wind-y, two-lane road into Stephen King-land and we were certain we missed the turn we needed.

“But Nine,” you may be thinking, “don’t you have a spiffy Prius with spiffy navigation? How is it possible that you got lost with such a wondrous thing?”

Erh. Yeah.

See… at the end of April, I was in a car accident. My car was hit and is currently out of commission. I’m fine and the car is (most likely) fixable, but it means I’m driving a rental car right now, and this car doesn’t have super magical navigation powers.

So a few more street signs would’ve been nice.

Getting lost was worth it, though.

18 pictures (so far) on Flickr. There’ll be stuff on YouTube later.