LJ friends network PSA: scyllacat sighted post-hurricane; disaster mutterings

scyllacat has been sighted after leaving a very scary hurricane post (most likely from a mobile device); she is evidently fine.

I don't know her, but I know a goodly fraction of the friendslist does, and since I, not even knowing her, was weeping last night after reading the comments in that entry ... yeah. LJ deserves to have some "our beloveds are safe" posts to balance out some of the "OMFG DISASTER DOOM" posts.

So. Safe.

And my heart breaks for those people who aren't going to get the incredible relief of knowing that the person they were worried about has made it through the crisis. And again for people who didn't realize that they had someone in harm's way, and for those who didn't think where their beloveds were was harm's way, and especially for those without someone to keep watch for them...

Ambiguous Food

thette -- given Hugo, you may want to give this entry a skip.

In the depths of my refrigerator, left over from at least February or even times before that, sat a large (unopened) plastic-wrapped block of medium cheddar cheese. I hauled it out today (well, Monday, but that counts as "today" because I haven't yet slept) and took a look at it.

There were no funny spots. The thing looked just the same plastic-yellow color, and I determined that well, it's cheese. And unless cheese starts hosting alien life-forms or dessicating beyond repair, given that it's been sitting in well-supervised cooling...

So I tried it.

Evidently, well-packaged, well-preserved medium cheddar cheese turns into extra-sharp cheddar after it's passed its sell-by date by a good five months.

My inner cheese fiend has been having a field day, and secretly plotting to hoard packages of unopened cheese at the bottom of the refrigerator. If I still had roommates, at some point I would have naturally been questioned on the topic of why, and I would have had to have affected an innocent face and answered, "I'm sharpening them!" (The innocent face when I'm saying something perfectly outrageous is one of my special talents.)

Writing Challenge: 1,000 Oranges & a Bomb

On the topic of mistranslated filth, and why it's so often lost-in-translation filth rather than jelly doughnuts. In the threads, I wound up mentioning Jean Fritz's moment with orange juice and an egg.

Someone thought that the resulting nonsensical order should be a nanowrimo project of some sort. But I'm booked this year -- either Captain Davidson's going to take over my brain, or Constance McNeill will, or someone else -- or they'll club together. I really am not sure if I want to see the results if the good Captain and Constance get together, because they're such diametrically opposed forces. And in any case, the Captain wants a series of short stories, not a book. Or, at least, not a book first, because she comes from the episodic format. And Constance is like water, and doesn't hold still for long. And she's already got a piece started.

So. An open writing prompt or challenge: 1,000 Oranges and a Bomb.

Puff the Magic Dragon

Not safe for work unless you work for a tattoo place or a urologist: Puff the Magic Dragon

Now that's an extreme tattoo. I both admire and fear that type of work.

Another person, less capable of spelling

( Cut for brief one-way chat log )

UPS for the happy geek

Oh, I am a happy little geek. My laptop is plugged via USB into the APC UPS, which means very little to someone who can't decipher the alphabet soup, but -- basically, the laptop recognizes the UPS as a back-up battery instead of wall current, so should the power go down, the UPS will tell the laptop that it's running on a battery now -- granted, a big-ass battery, but still a battery -- and the computer will happily go over into power-saving mode and hibernate itself if there's need. Whee!

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cadhla does Coyote's Ten Commandments, based off the Biblical ones. (Now with more metaquotes!)

And of course that spawned...
Raven's Commandments (as transcribed by me):

I. Thou shalt not miss an opportunity to hang with your friends. Unless, you know, you're doing something else. But they can probably come along too if they want to.

II. That was actually pretty funny. From some perspective. Even if it wasn't yours. I mean, look at me. I'm laughing, aren't I?

III. If you don't think it can be done, that just means you're thinking about it wrong.

IV. There's very little that you can do that can't be done better, faster, and with less effort on your part if you can get someone else to do it for you.

V. Except for playing. That's personal.

VI. Payback's a bitch. But it's also funny as fuck. I mean, I'm laughing, aren't I?

VII. Just because it's leftover doesn't mean it's bad. ... If you don't want it, shove over. Mine.

VIII. If you don't need it now, you'll probably need it later.

IX. Ooo, shiny!

X. What, we needed more of these? I'll get around to it later. If something comes up, put it here.

(no subject)

In the "geeky and strange" files, I've been contemplating getting myself one of those danged debossed silicone rubber bracelets in a pale green, hopefully with my name on it, but definitely with "CTY CLN.95 Hamilton College" -- if you were there then, you'll remember our shackles! I wore mine for several weeks after camp ended. Sometime during intersession, I think, I modified the thing very carefully with a pair of scissors, making the hole in the plastic like a buttonhole, but relatively invisibly. I could take it off at will, and put it back on before I got caught.

http://www.goodsforgiving.com/wristbands.html has reasonably-priced single bracelets, but a horribly limited character limit. 20 characters? Not going to work for what I want.

But. Time for me to start getting my geek on again.

(no subject)

@ Trystan_laryssa's. Much geeking as she has sociology presentation on fandom tomorrow. She borrows cape and shirt.