Live from the Prof

Nanner Ream-O

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:14:28 GMT

For everyone who is working on NaNoWriMo--

and for those, like me, who know that November is the second cruelest month, and wouldn't dream of it--

Snootch's NaNovel.

Hey! You're not supposed to be there!

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:01:53 GMT

Mostly for the amusement of peasant007 , I thought I would post these pictures.

Those of you who are unfortunate enough to have Cecil in your neighborhoods know that he turns up everywhere, like the proverbial bad penny. Two Outgoing Points my eye; he does run bys, steals newspapers, and shows up on community lots. And his specialty is strolling into important shots, especially when he is supposed to be on a Mysterious Journey.

Textbook case:

As you know, Lenore and Zane, from Peasant's Legacy, recently fell in love as teens and I'm letting them go with it for now (whether this will go on into adulthood, I don't know.) I'm trying to get all my extra children and teens ready for college, and when I checked in on Lenore, I was surprised to see that she had a First Kiss want. She and Zane are in love and they're even going steady, but they've only hugged.

Why not send Lenore downtown to buy a cell phone, and then call Zane for a date? That's what made sense, anyhow.

I forgot about Mr. Ostensible.

Cecil: Young lady, may I proffer an amusing and instructive anecdote?

Zane: Do Legacy Sims always do things like interrupt dates?

WriterTina: So do simselves, to be fair.

Cecil: Ah. I shall tactfully remove myself. . .

Cecil: . . . .right outside the glass door, where I can be seen.

At last Lenore goes in for that First Kiss--

Sextus: **stares openly**

Other PB and WriterTina: **provide a distraction by playing Rock, Paper, Scissors**

Meanwhile, Cecil has returned, feeling that his presence must be required.

Cecil: MADAM. How dare you approach an utter stranger?

But. . . but you. . . .oh, never mind.

The date proceeds.

Cecil: May I offer useful advice? Is your mother aware that you are out with a young gentleman in public?

Cecil: ---excuse me for a moment. Madam, I shall not warn you again.

Lenore: Great date! You want to leave before things get really ugly?

Zane: Yes, please.

How to break it down a bit--

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:42:28 GMT

--from today's lecture on Julius Caesar.

"Brutus: My answer is, not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more."

--

Caesar < Rome

Squeaky Clean Legacy, 16.5B: Elaine the Lovable, Part 2

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:27:23 GMT

Enjoy!

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Squeaky Clean Legacy, 16.5A: Elaine the Lovable, Part 1

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:04:01 GMT

Part Two will follow in a few days, if I'm lucky. Work is slowing me down. Enjoy!

Hope this is good news

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:52:51 GMT

I haven't been all that well, BUT I have an update nearly sorted out: a two-parter. I have a filler slide or two to shoot, and then I need to write it up.

I can't exactly predict when it will be done. I just got my first load of grading/commenting to do, and this will slow me down a bit. The grading will keep up through December, too. Nevertheless, it's some nice progress, especially since I've played Elaine up to teen and her elder brothers are all in college.

Generation Nine almost in college! Yay!

Happy birthday, Doc!

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:45:34 GMT

Actual game shot!

As a special birthday bonus, I won't tell anyone what that puddle is yet!

Many happy returns of the day--

Prof

Well, looky thar!

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 06:26:39 GMT

My most recent heiress teened up! Here's Elaine.

I'll leave her Aspiration and LTW as a surprise for now.

I like her in the more normal clothing, but if her brothers are in medieval clothes, I'm kind of stuck. On the other hand, I may wind up putting them in something--more Maxis, let's put it that way--and if I do, I have a bit more leeway. Anyway, she's in pinky hearty stuff, no matter what, and luckily she looks good in it.

Parsifal and Gawaine have to go to college right away. They are really, really close to aging to Adult--within three days, and that's really unusual for me. The only reason I waited was for Elaine to be a teenager. She has nearly all her scholarships, too, so probably she'll only spend the weekend at home and then go to college--long enough to have some fun, buy a cellphone, and get the Connections Perks from Daddy.

Would someone be willing to extract Gen Nine for me? I'm always a bit paranoid and I have a weird werewolf memory and that always makes me worried. The only thing is that whoever does it will either have to have a game from before AL OR be able to put the Sims up on the Exchange. Saving Sims to file, at least as a SimsPack, means Macs can't install them.

I've packaged the lots as files, and I removed all the CC except for the skins on Telemachus and Nausicaa. I did that because I'm not sure what happens if you remove the custom skin off an alien. Probably something dire and they'd probably have that skin with question marks or numbers all over.

They're an interesting generation.

Otherwise, it's been a really busy and stressful time. I'm getting ready to leave for Virginia early Tuesday morning. Getting ready for travel always makes me nervous and I'm even more so because last time I left, the catsitter didn't know to come. She does know this time and we called to confirm AND she came over on Friday, but I'm still feeling paranoid about leaving my babies. And guilty. Cats always make you feel guilty.

I'm caught up on most legacies and getting there with the BRRL! Can't wait!

This cheered ME up, or "You are being shagged by a rare parrot"

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:57:36 GMT

I was in a foul mood today, partly because while I was driving around in my little village, I paused at the stop sign to check if the big SUV would roll through its stop sign, or the pedestrians on the side would float right past as through I wasn't there, and while I was looking around, the lady on the sidewalk wanting to cross started to SHRIEK at me. "GO! GO!!!!!!" She virtually shrieked me around the corner and into another crosswalk where some other pedestrians were trying to cross and they were clearly very worried and upset. I was so angry that I got an adrenaline rush and had a quick visualization of how long it would take to park the car, race back, and pound some sense and manners into her. That is extremely rare for me to get that angry, and of course, I did not do it, but it took all afternoon and a heavy bout of exercise at the gym to calm me down.

Not sure why this upset me so much, maybe because I try so hard to drive carefully in the town I live in, and it's full of college students, and it's a pedestrian town. So on Friday at lunchtime, there will be lots of people floating across the street, at the crosswalks, or maybe in the middle, they don't care or notice, and there will be parents driving assault vehicles and high school kids racing around, and maybe even kids. And seniors--lots of them. And lots of bicyclists. I *like* the fact that I live in a walking town in Southern California, which is pretty darned rare, but the price is that you have to drive very defensively. I've seen a little old guy driving a golf cart get hit--and killed--by a lady in a truck who had the right of way, but so what? He was just as dead. People with short fuses have no business walking OR driving around there. It takes patience, or there will be accidents.

I'm glad I didn't try to play Traffic Cop With Fists, though. Maybe I will write a note to City Hall. They put up some better signage when that poor man was killed and I hope my letter had something to do with it.

ANYWAY, I have been extremely busy and tired, and I slumped down and started watching Rachel Maddow, and she played this clip and I could not stop laughing. As a special bonus, it's got Stephen Fry in it. It's his nature show, "Last Chance To See," and here he's documenting a rare flightless parrot.

One ad I can't stand and one that cracks me up

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:27:19 GMT

OK, I don't watch a lot of TV, and the stuff I do watch, I watch again and again. There are only a handful of channels I watch--basically, if it isn't MSNBC, Comedy Central, or PBS, I have to look up the channel number. (I used to watch TCM a lot, too. I don't know what happened to that.)

And since I'm mostly a public television and public radio type person, seeing the same ad over and over and over burns a little track in my brain. So what the heck, I thought I would share the misery.

First, the ad that drives me crazy, "Pennies."

Paid for by the Americans Against Food Taxes. Because the American Beverage Institute, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and the American Can Co. are Americans, too. ( I guess they are also "concerned citizens.")

Ah, where to begin. Let's stipulate right away that you could think this tax on soda is or isn't a good idea. I'm on the fence about it. As taxes go, it doesn't sound too terribly painful and it might do a little good. In general, I'm dubious about the utility of "sin taxes," and I'm not crazy about sales taxes, because they bite the people with the least money the hardest. (If I earn 40,000 a year and you earn 20,000 a year and we buy the same pair of jeans, we pay the same tax, but it's a bigger part of your income.)

But really. First of all, somehow a small soda tax is going to affect her ability to "feed her family?" Soda is not a food. It's artificially cheap, for one thing, because of the subsidies that corn and sugar growers get, and otherwise, it's basically flavored water. So it's unbelievably cheap to produce. There is a reason that when you order a drink, you're usually paying for the alcohol in the drink, and not for the soda or sour mix that goes in it, and there's a reason you get free refills on soda when you eat out at a lot of places.

If paying a few pennies on a two-liter bottle of soda is going to starve your family, you are buying a megaton of soda and it is a miracle that any of you are still alive. From what I understand, the tax also applies to "grape drink," "orange drink," and stuff like Hawaiian Punch. ("Look, Ma! It's got 10% fruit juice, almost!") and YooHoo.

Extra points for the way she addresses Washington as a person ("Washington is talking about a new tax" "Washington, if you're listening"). "I saw Washington down at the Bon Ton Cafe and LET ME TELL YOU, she has a BAD home perm, and I mean BAD. It's no wonder her husband Baltimore is cheating on her with Wilmington." Special award for the way she lives in such a Mayberry kind of neighborhood that not only doesn't she have to lock her car door, she doesn't even have to close the hatchback.

I know this is stupid, but this ad calls to the geeky depths in me: "Our Rock Stars Aren't Like Your Rock Stars."

I know it's just an ad, but it cracks me up every time. Extra points for the finger-gunning.

I'm getting there with catching up on the comments. School started yesterday, and I'm not quite ready. I have to get it all done by Sunday because Monday is one of my "furlough" days and I can't post anything to Blackboard or even answer email. This is a big deal when you have one class that is entirely online and you had to move a bazillion files because the school changed its servers. Plus yesterday and Wednesday were entirely eaten up by an unnecessary bureaucratic nightmare that I might write about when I stop spooking at sudden noises. But I am down to a few legacies AND I am catching up on the BRRL!

Squeaky Clean Legacy 16.4

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:17:45 GMT

Squeaky Clean Legacy 16.4: Little Knights and Ladies

View more documents from professorbutters.

Happy birthday!

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:17:24 GMT

To Stacie, and also to Jamie and Dicreasy, whose birthdays I shamefully missed because I dithered about worrying that I had no time to shoot a proper card. Happy birthday to all of you!

The next update is about half written. It's going to be very long but it's full of nice kiddie pictures so I hope no one minds. I'd hoped to be finished before school started, and I'm close.

The first day is tomorrow. It's going to be weird and tomorrow I may tell you why. Classes start on Thursday. But I'm happy that I finished my syllabi, and that was a pain because I had to adjust them all to reflect the furloughs.

I have been a busy bee.

Did anyone see Dr. Horrible on the Emmys? It was fun!

working on a new chapter

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:49:22 GMT

I have over two hundred pictures, so once I'm done sorting them out, I will be dividing them in half. It's not exactly going to be a Part 1 and Part 2, just 250 pictures is a lot.

I apologize for being so slow. I had a fellowship proposal to write up this week, and those are pretty complicated.

School starts Monday, and frankly, I am really depressed about it. For one thing, evidently there is talk about merging my department with another one. I don't mind "English and Foreign Languages," but "English and Foreign Languages and History and Psychology and Sociology" sounds as though it's nothing to be taken seriously. And would you want a graduate degree from a department like that? Seriously?

For another, trying to figure out my syllabi is a serious bummer. Do I cut assignments? If so, which ones? If I do, how will I live with the guilt? If I don't, am I allowing the University to pick my pocket by giving them 150% work for 90% pay?

The LA Times today suggested that it would be a good idea to extend furloughs for the UC into next year. Oh, yeah, sure sure we understand that UC faculty are only paid modest amounts, but surely there won't be a "mass exodus." Translation: it is so hard to find work once you are tenured that they pretty much have us over a barrel, so they can carry this on indefinitely. Meanwhile, students are ANGRY. Some of them are going to protests and getting arrested. UC students don't like 32% fee hikes. CSU students, sadly, are used to it by now.

And Monday I get my ten year service pin. WHOOPIE. I already agreed to wear an "I don't want to strike" T shirt. And I am first in line.

What can you do, huh? I'm baking a pie. I figure that might help me, anyhow. And I've been playing. And . . .

well, here is Elaine.

Clarification

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:31:52 GMT

Oh, dear, I feel so embarrassed to admit that the previously-mentioned super sekrit project has nothing to do with the Sims. It's actually a crochet project and it is super-sekrit because if it comes out nicely, it will be a Christmas present for my mother. She doesn't read LJ but you can't be too careful. It's nearly done. The first one is for me because these things are always a trial run and the second one is always better than the first.

AUGH, already enmired in school! I have to write a fellowship application and I guess I could have done it earlier, and should have, and it's not going to be as good as it could. It's warming over a research project I did a while ago before I go sidelined by other stuff. Still, if I complete this, I will have done pretty much all the academic work I promised myself would get done this summer, and you can't say fairer than that. Not so much the projects around the house, but you can't have everything.

I also have to move alllll my web stuff onto a new server, tart up my syllabi, making allowances for the furlough stuff, write up a presentation on Much Ado About Nothing that I am giving on Friday, and begin work on my paper for the Blackfriars. Plus, of course, laundry. If comments are late, this is why.

I also bought a new hand mixer and tried it out with my chocolate angel food cake recipe and it works like a dream. I was wondering what kept going wrong and basically, you can't expect a twenty year old mixer to work very well, so the meringue wasn't lofting the way it should. The difference with the new one is like night and day.

A bit of picspam

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 08:07:28 GMT

I've been playing a lot lately, actually, I'm just really, really sloooow. And of course I do not want to spoil anything, but I do have a few pictures of the Gen Nine kiddos that I thought you would enjoy.

First up: the main house boys. I don't think I have enough lighting there, so the pictures I took there are pretty dark. I took these at Ulysses' and Achilles' house.

Gawaine:

And Parsifal:

Technically, I can select either Fortune or Knowledge for any of the main house kids, but I rolled them and they came up Popularity, so Popularity it is. Gawaine rolled the want to be The Law, which is so him. Look at him with poor Nausicaa.

On the other hand, he really is a natural older-brother type.

Parsifal rolled the want to be a Hall of Famer. I don't think Pop suits him the way it suits Gawaine, but they are such a combo of cooperative and competitive that naturally they're both the same Aspiration.

Little Palomides is still a child and mean as spit.

As for Nausicaa and Telemachus, they aged up. From this:

To this:

Nausicaa rolled Pleasure, 50 Dream Dates, which is both annoying and doesn't seem quite like her. She's extremely shy and nice. But maybe she just needs to find someone she wants to go on Fifty Dream Dates with.

I like the outfit I found for her, though.

Telemachus went from this:

To this:

Slightly closer view. He has a very unusual, virtually invisible, nose, but I think he's still cute.

The other stuff that went down at that birthday party is a dark secret for now.

Over at the Midlock's place, Lenore brought Zane home as a Friend From School, thus proving once again that he has the self-preservation skills of a lemming.

Lenore: Hey, you're good at that.

He wanted to be FRIENDS with her, heaven help him, friends with the daughter of the Terror Twins. Which actually made Lenore very happy and also made for a very cute picture.

Incidentally, I've had to be careful with Lenore. Carmilla can't have any boyfriends over with a date timer running, because once that happened and poor Lenore started to cry. And nothing was worth that, so I patched up her relationship with her mother and now Carmilla doesn't do dates unless Lenore is at school, and she sees boyfriends sometimes when Lenore is asleep, but not as a "date." This has now become quite tricky, since Carmilla has also 'hooed the maid. Closing in on that 20 WooHoos is tough. That is the real reason I'm doing this. Carmilla, left to herself, would probably be happy with just a few boyfriends, but I would like to try getting that LTW done and it ain't happenin' at the main house.

Lenore grew up like this:

Closer shot because I know Di will like this:

I was expecting to change her hair and her makeup and her clothes, and you know what, I like her the way she is for now. Daddy's CC eyes, and I'm pretty sure she's got Mommy's nose. Since Carmilla inherited the Ben Long nose from Count Whoopie and I think Stanley has a slightly Komei-like face. . . .

Stanley: You're so grown-up and pretty, I can't believe it!

Let this be a lesson unto us not to be snobby about Sims' appearances.

And here she is, playing drums.

The family now has an informal rock band called the Counsels of Desperation. Playing music together is the only thing that will stop them from spying on the neighbors. I'm surprised Morticia Goth even bothers going home. As a result, most of them absolutely hate her. So I make them jam out, and then the rest of them tip them and dance around.

It helps keep Spacely from grilling endless burgers and hot dogs, too, at least a little bit.

Lenore rolled Family, Graduate Three Kids From College. That, I'm keeping. I don't know, it seems kind of appropriate for a girl in a family of Romance and Pleasure Sims with a few Knowledge extremists like Aunt Lucy that maybe she would want a more conventional life. How she is going to manage that, I'm not sure.

I don't know how soon an update will happen. I've been crazy busy but I did want to get a bit done before school starts next week. I've also decided to play some of the reverse-Pleasantview families. What's the point of having them if you're not going to play them?--plus maybe some of the kids will hit it off with the Legacy kids or the Romans, and at this point, I might as well send some of them to college. The neighborhood is practically brand new, so the character bloat has hardly started yet.

I'm also almost done with a super-sekrit project.

Because we do not do this, this is why.

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:49:49 GMT

Seriously. I don't care what you think of the President and his policies, you do not scream "YOU LIE!" while he's talking at a flippin' Joint Session of Congress.

You gotta love the expression on Nancy Pelosi's face, though. Look at that jaw drop, and Biden's head shake and "that is so, so not right." As someone said on another site: you know you're in trouble when *Joe Biden* is embarrassed by something you said.

Without getting overtly partisan about this, I think it's connected to what I said earlier about screaming "Nazi!" and bringing guns to rallies. When you make a practice of outrageous behavior, you're going to carry it into inappropriate places. You can't act like a yobbo everywhere else and then stuff the milk back in the jar.

There ARE appropriate ways to show disapproval during and after a Joint Session of Congress speech, which is really, really formal. (Clue: look at how they're all dressed.) Typically, they are:

1) non-verbal grumbling
2) pointedly sitting down and not applauding
3) not shaking hands. Political pundits LOVE watching who shook whose hand--it's a favorite after the day sport.

Inappropriate ways of showing disapproval:

1) carrying protest signs
2) texting during the speech --obviously, blatantly
3) and oh, yes, screaming "You Lie!"

They might as well have slouched in wearing backwards baseball caps.

I've noticed in general that people have trouble with distinguishing appropriate clothing and behavior in different places. When I teach writing, I often have students asking about "style." Usually I tell them there's not one "style," and explain that you wear different clothing in different places. You don't wear a tux to the beach and you don't wear swim clothes to. . . what? Here is where I am running into trouble. People now wear the same clothing everywhere, along with the same kind of manners, and it is always the lowest common denominator. I enjoy dressing up on occasion, and I'm sometimes given the hairy eye by people who clearly think I'm overdressed. I always think "whatever, dude, I'm not the one who chose to wear ripped-out jeans to the opera."

I'm not a super-fancy person: I wear sweats to the grocery store all the time and don't care what people think. But I don't wear them everywhere. I don't wear jeans when I teach. I'll wear denim in a halfway formal dress, but not jeans. I will wear them in office hours, along with a reasonably tidy shirt and sweater.

So whaddya think? Is this a symptom of general rudeness in our culture?

Squeaky Clean Legacy, 16.3, Part 2

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 05:06:44 GMT

The Squeaky Clean Legacy, 16.3.b: Romanes Ite Domum II

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Simspiration Post: Miranda Legacina

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 06:22:17 GMT

I wanted to do this right away, but it took a while, as you'll see.

Miranda Whedonberry checked the pie in the oven. “Oopsitude. Don’t want this all burniyucked up.” The doorbell rang. “Ash? Ava? Could one of you get the door?”

Miranda and Dean’s twins, Ash and Ava, darted into the kitchen. Ash barreled into his mother, hugging her l around the waist. “Can’t, Mama, ‘cause Ava doesn’t want to.”

Ava looked down. “Not . . .not don’t want to . . . “

Ash went right on. “Doesn’t WANT to because she says it could be some stranger, so it’s MY job.”

Miranda frowned. “Well, it could be, but it won’t be, because today—“

Ava lit up. “It’s the Uncles coming over! Yay!”

Ash shrugged. “They’re just a bunch of boring grownups,” he said unconvincingly, but he scampered after Ava. Some of those boring grownups played some cool games or brought neat toys, or sometimes . . .

“Miss me, kids?” said a slightly built green man with large liquid eyes.

. . . sometimes they just plain loved them. Pure and simple.

“Uncle Farny!” screamed the twins, burying him in hugs.

“Watch it, guys, you’re getting big, and I’m a bleeder!”

“Are NOT,” said Ash, who could be very literal.

“Kidlies, you will climb down off Uncle Farny so Mama-san can hug him first.” Miranda hugged Farnsworth Gibson, her red hair brushing his green cheek.

“Is Dean home yet?”

“No, he’s going to pick up some things on the way home, he said. I’m so glad you got here first, Worthiness.”

Farnsworth lit up.

“Because I’m going to put you to work.”

His shoulders sagged. She handed him some cutlery.

“Set the table in there. Now scoot!” The doorbell rang again. “Mama-san will get this one. You run off and play with Aunt Louise.”

Ash made a face. “OK. We didn’t want to play with the Numb-Ni.”

Miranda opened the door.

“Hello, lovely lady,” said a dark and interesting gentleman with brilliantly colored streaked hair. A slightly sullen looking man with a beard hovered behind him. “Did you miss us?”

“Knightly! You brought flowers!”

“I couldn’t resist.”

“Can’t stay off the flattery, can you, ‘Knightly’,” grumbled Dwight Familiar, as he followed the extravagantly courtly Lancelot Locks into the hall and handed Miranda a bottle of wine.

“You’ll excuse me, Miranda?” said Lancelot, gracefully slipping from the room. “Now, where was. . .”

“Aw, no, he’s going to get in the hot tub again. I’ve gotta go remind him to keep his swim trunks on,” Dwight said, eyebrows knitted. He began to follow Lancelot out.

“Not so fastinaceous, Lite-Dwight,” said Miranda, giving him a large hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“I, well. . .aw,” said Dwight shyly, the blush barely visible under his beard as he left the way Lancelot had gone.

Farnsworth’s voice floated in from the dining room. “The Numb-Ni?”

Miranda laughed. “Oh, that was Jelly-Dean. He called the dinners the ‘Alumni Association’, and Ash couldn’t pronounce it, so he calls you the Uncles, or the Numb-Ni. All done? Good, ‘cause there’s more work in the kitchen.”

“Wait wait wait!” spluttered Farnsworth. “I brought cheese. You didn’t even give me a chance to show it to you, let alone get it in the fridge!” He showed her a nice creamy wedge of Brie.

“Scrummiacious! Not in the fridge, Worthiness, that’s not cool, it’s supposed to be a little warm. Here, put it on this plate, and put some crackers around it . . .and here’s some veggies, you’d better cut them up and put them on, too. . . “

“You and Dean are SUCH Pop Sims,” grumbled Farnsworth.

“You are, too,” Miranda pointed out.

“Yes, but . . .but you’re SUCH Pop Sims. MEGA Pop Sims,” said Farnsworth, but he didn’t really mean it. He was sociable but shy, and it was much nicer to work with his hostess in the kitchen.

“I do have to hand it to you, Miranda. You’re probably the only Bachelorette ever to have an Alumni Association of her own Challenge.”

Miranda looked surprised. “But you’re all my friends! Dean’s friends, too, now.”

He smiled at her fondly. “That’s what I mean. You’re both such Pop Sims.” The doorbell rang again. “Go get the door,” he added, waving her away with a vegetable knife in his hand.

Miranda opened the door to a boyish redhead with eyeglasses that made him look a bit like a science professor, which was sort of what he was. “Scott-Free!”

“Hi, Miranda,” said Scott Penguino shyly. “Better put this in the freezer, cause it’ll melt.”

“Home-made ice cream! Scott-Free, you are the best!”

“Well, no, I’m not, because technically I came in third and . . .kidding, kidding.” Scott followed Miranda into the kitchen. Shy people always head for the kitchen. “Hey, Farnsworth!”

“Hey, Scott,” said Farnsworth.

“Lipschitz! said to give you his apologies, he’s off somewhere with Hello Goodbye this weekend. Sorry I could only bring the vanilla, I meant to make some rum ice cream too to go with the pie you said you were making, only. . . “ he broke off.

“Scott? Did Marla have the baby?” squeaked Miranda.

“. . .yeah,” he said, blushing. “ A girl. We named her after my sister Jennie. Oof!” he added, as Miranda squeezed him.

“You bring Marla all the goodies back, you hear, and you invite me over to see the baby. And you thank her for letting you come when she probably needs you at home.”

“I will, Miranda. She said it was fine. She said she knows you’d do the same. She wants you to come to dinner as soon as possible, only it might not be right away, because she’s so busy with the baby.”

“We’ll bring dinner, Scott-Free, don’t be silly. I’ll call Marla tomorrow.” Scott’s cellphone buzzed. “You might want to answer that.”

“I was going to,” said Scott mildly, leaving the kitchen. “Hello, honey,” he said, his voice going soft. “Really? She did? Already?”

“I noticed you have seven plates. You’ll have to take one off, if Lipschitz! isn’t coming,” said Farnsworth.

“Yes,” said Miranda. “What? I knew Lipschitz! wasn’t coming. He called last week. Gardez la pointe,” she added, as Farnsworth sneakily cut a piece of Brie.

“Huh?”

“Keep the point. Don’t cut the Brie straight across. Keep it pointy.”

“Who cares about stuff like that? It’s cheese, Miranda, it comes from cows. Well, mostly from cows.” He paused to slice some Brie. “So you knew Lipschitz! wasn’t coming, but you’ve got seven plates out there. Why?”

There was a pause.

“No. Not seriously.”

“Well. . .”

“Miranda, not seriously.”

“I’d just feel so bad if someday he showed up and there wasn’t a plate out for him.”

“Miranda, Cecil’s the only one who didn’t want to stay friends with you. Do you even know where he is?” Miranda shook her head. “Unbelievable. He can’t have any idea you and Dean have anniversary dinners for the Bachelorette Alumni. “

“I guess not,” said Miranda.

“He probably doesn’t even know where you and Dean live.”

“Oh, no. I’m sure he does.” Farnsworth stared at her. “That’s the way See-saw thinks, see. He doesn’t want to be friends, never that. But I’m sure he knows where I am.”

“That’s . . . really creepy.”

Miranda shrugged. “It’s just the way he thinks. Oh, and gardez la pointe.” Farnsworth carefully, deliberately, cut the cheese straight across. “Worthiness!”

“I am only going to say this once, Miranda. I will not eat cheese Cecil-style. The only person who is going to eat a French cheese, cutting it in prissy little points while talking about the points in French, is Cecil.” He put some Brie on a cracker and handed it to her. “Here.”

Miranda sat down at the kitchen table. “Thanks.”

“I just don’t like you getting upset because one person, one immature, lousy person, didn’t want to be friends with you.”

“That’s not what bothers me,” said Miranda.

“No?” said Farnsworth.

“No,” she said. “What bothers me,” she added sadly, “is that, in his way, he really did.”

Squeaky Clean Legacy, 16.3, Part 1

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 04:48:30 GMT

Part 2 to follow in a day or two, but why make you wait?

Squeaky Clean Legacy 16.3.a: Romanes Ite Domum

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Please comment on my Boolprop thread!

People can be so damned cruel

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:39:27 GMT

I've got another sinus type thing that hurts like sin. Went to Urgent Care and the doctor gave me a prescription, but he's encouraging me to go with OTC Sudafed and stuff. He's also pressing this stuff that . . . .well, TMI, let's just say that it helps in some ways but makes me really, really, REALLY sick to my stomach.

Part of the problem is probably accumulated junk, and the filter on my aircon is probably filthy. I should know how to fix it, but I don't, so I'm going to have to get someone to do it for me.

So with an earache, I'm not in a really good mood, and I hit the ceiling when I read this:

"Wayward Cat Limps Home with 13-inch Arrow Shot Through Its Head"

Monroe County, IN. I used to live there. You stay classy, Bloomington. First things first: Cats are freaking AMAZING. Not only did this cat get back to its owners (who totally freaked out, of course; I would have), it's just got some kind of nasty looking hole. No brain damage, no vision loss, even. The first picture looks awful, and of course I didn't have the heart to watch the video. But Brownie is already getting better. My friend Louis is a vet who specializes in cats and he says they are amazingly tough. Having owned them all my life, I can say this is true.

The bad part is this was not an accident. It was intentional cruelty to cats. I do not know why cats attract such nastiness in the twenty-first century.

I donated some money to a reward for turning in the person who did it. You can find some info about the incident and about the reward fund here. I didn't want to embed the video or the pix, because some people might find it really upsetting. (But there are a few pictures of the kitty getting better, so it really will be ok.) Animal cruelty on this scale is a felony, but they have trouble getting people to report it. Whoever it was should be prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law. (I'm part Egyptian, so there's a part of me that says "give him the death penalty," but since I don't believe in it at all, I don't really mean that.)

Another wag of my finger to the guy who decided he didn't like the way a two year old girl was crying and said to her mother, "if you won't make her stop crying, I will" and hit the poor child four time, HARD. He's been arrested for felony assault. The baby is fine and playing and seems to have forgotten all about it. Her mom's a wreck.

Shooting cats for fun, slapping little children: honestly, what's WRONG with people?

---
Tippi Hedren's big cat sanctuary, Shambala Preserve, seems to have weathered the fire so far. There's a lot of unsolicited criticism on why she hasn't moved 64 lions and tigers, partly because two of them used to belong to Michael Jackson. I don't see why tigers that used to belong to Michael Jackson are more important than ones that weren't. She's been working with the fire department and they agreed she should stay put for now: she's got all the equipment for moving them if she has to. In general, while the smoke from the fire is affecting people badly, we're really, really lucky so far. It's more contained than they thought it would be, and there's been very, very little human injury or loss of life, and only about 100 buildings gone. While I'm sure that's not much comfort if it's *your* house, it's still incredible. Now to hope the rest of the effort goes well and then move in to make sure lots of new plants are there so there aren't terrible mudslides in a few months.

--
In other news, working on my new chapter and I have almost all the pictures. I have one or two more scenes to shoot and a bit more sorting to do, and then I can write. I hate fooling around with picture resolution and at this point, I'm just going to settle with what I've got. There will be a lot of simselves and some Legacy Sims in this one, and those are always fun.

Fires, and There is not enough headdesk in the world

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:21:54 GMT

It is about 100 degrees where I live, and big chunks of Southern California is burning. It's not so great for my asthma, though it's not nearly so bad as it is near the fires, where the air quality has actually been listed as Hazardous. Marina, if you are ok, please let us know, ok? I've been trying to restrict exercise, but I will have to get back to it because they say this fire might go on for two weeks.

Last week I was at the grocery store and noticed a man in uniform behind me. I asked "police or fire?" and he said "fire," and I saw the LA County Fire Dept. badge. I gave him a thumbs-up and said "I really, really appreciate everything you do." I'm so happy I said that now. I would never have the courage that these men and women do and I'm so grateful for them.

I'm also worried sick about the big cats at the Shambala Preserve. These are all lions and tigers and panthers, mainly who have been abandoned by stupid pet owners, or who were abused. There are over 70 of them, and it's nearly impossible to evacuate them. (Get 70 lions out on a two lane mountain road? Um, no?) So the staff has dug in. They do a fire drill every six weeks, and they have a big fire break and a 22,000 gallon water tank and a lake and water hoses, and I hope to heaven it's enough. I love every kind of cat, as you probably have figured by now, and I have a special kind of anger for people who decide that oh, hey, it would be cool to own a tiger, and then get rid of it.

I'm trying not to think about it, because I'll be really sad if things go badly, but I can't. And of course I'm worried about the people, too, though I do wonder why anyone would think they could "ride out" a Southern California wildfire by sitting in a hot tub. Regular animals are being sheltered at the Pasadena Humane Society. I just sent them a donation.

Also, anyone who feels like saying something like "well, it's their *fault* for living in a fire zone" : I give you the back of my hand. People like that have NO CONCEPTION of how big these fires get. You don't have to be a millionaire living in a fancy home in a brushy canyon. You could be some ordinary family living in a regular suburb. I don't have a lot of patience with people who talk a lot of stuff about how the victims probably should have been living somewhere else. When bad stuff happens, you pitch in and donate to the Red Cross, and send messages of support. You save your criticism for later.

ETA: GREAT. Yosemite is on fire, too, and my parents are supposed to go there on vacation on Wednesday. I'll call them tomorrow and check in with them. I doubt they'd be in any specific danger, but my Dad has asthma too and a lot of crud in the air would not be good for him.

ETA 2: My parents are going to Yellowstone, not Yosemite, duh. And whew.

Via the fine folks at Sparklefield:

Wuthering Heights reprinted with *Twiight* style cover. Twifans express disappointment.

Actual quote: The novel might be flying off the shelves, but readers posting reviews on Waterstone's website weren't entirely impressed by Brontë's writing. Giving it just one star, Hayley Mears wrote that "I was really disappointed when reading this book, it's made to believe to be one of the greatest love stories ever told and I found only five pages out of the whole book about there love and the rest filled with bitterness and pain and other peoples stories".

This is really too bad. Personally, I think Meyer's understanding of Great English literature is kind of reductionist. Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, and Merchant of Venice are all about the love stories for her. That's a pet peeve of mine, especially with books like Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre: yes, they are love stories, and they are ALSO about other stuff. Jane Eyre in particular gets big points from me when she has to decide if she is going to stay with Edward Rochester, because she knows he will do something desperate, and she should save him from himself, and after all he's the only one who cares for her: "Who cares for you?" and she responds to herself: "I care for myself." I can never think of that moment without a huge mental BOO-YAH.

Incidentally, I was on another site where someone suggested that people who liked Twilight had never read anything else, and I shot back that that was definitely, demonstrably, not true. It ain't my cup of cougar squeezins but that doesn't mean that no literate, intelligent people like it. I think some of the argument that people make fun of it because it's a romance novel with a mostly feminine audience has some merit.

I did a tiny bit of playing yesterday. Not a lot. Having work sitting around makes me feel guilty. But I'm nearly done with drafting my theater business essay. Now I need to add in the actual footnotes, which is a PITA and why so few people want to be theater historians. Also, a super-sekrit crocheting project is nearly done!

WTF

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:52:23 GMT

WTF is with all these people carrying freaking *assault rifles* to events where the President is speaking? That's three days in a row now.

Sorry, don't have anything to add, just WTF. I worry that someone is going to lose his temper and that someone will get hurt or killed before this is over. I don't quite get why my four ounce bottle of sunscreen is so almightily scary and yet somehow an AK 15 in an angry mob isn't. WTF.

Mem to self: Set Wayback Machine, speak to Madison and Monroe. Add a bit to Second Amendment about well moisturized militias.

Believe it or not!

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 08:53:14 GMT

I've actually got some pictures ready for the next update. I don't have them all, but the next one will be all Roman, and this means a lot of it will be Sextus and Other PB's wedding and the first baby, Duodecimus Marius. I've got a couple more weddings to throw, and then we're back with the Goodytwoshoes again. Hopefully I'll be caught up on reviews soon, too.

Also, if you haven't been to see the new movie *Julie and Julia*, GO GO GO. It was absolutely fabulous. It's based on a real story. An office worker and writer decides to do a blog: she would cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's cookbook in 365 days, which is NUTS. I won't ruin it for you, but how often do you get a triple threat like Nora Ephron, Meryl Streep, and Amy Adams? Stanley Tucci is great, too, as Julia Child's husband Paul. It's about women, it's about writing, it is about FOOD. It even brought back some not-so-lovely memories of getting a book published: it is every bit as annoying as they make it seem.

After you see it, you're awfully tempted to get your very own copy of *Mastering the Art of French Cooking*, and after awhile, I stopped struggling. It's actually not a bad time to do that, because they've published a bunch of movie tie-ins (what a surprise!) So I got the first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and Julia Child's *My Life in France* and Julie Powell's book for less than 40.00 from Amazon. And after I get Julia Child's book, I will teach myself how to make a really, really good omelette.

Yes, I should be working, but this is also my chance to fix up the house and do some crafty and domestic stuff that I can never manage to do when school is going on. I've got a crochet project in the works, too. So I'm pretty happy.

Fandom religions

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:47:14 GMT

As you probably know, I'm writing up some stuff about *Twilight* on my other journal, moonyprof . It's probably going to slow down a bit because I really do have to start working again on my Theatre as Business article--I'm not sure whether the deadline is September 1st or September 30th, and I kind of freaked.

While I was surfing around, I found some references to a Twilight religion: Cullenism. That struck me as odd, because usually if you Google "Harry Potter" and "religion," what you get is a lot of references to the controversies between certain Christian groups and *Harry Potter.* And I really, really don't think Stephenie Meyer, who is a devout Mormon, would be pleased.

To be honest, I think they're kidding. Mostly. I think this is probably the sort of thing that started tongue in cheek and then was reported breathlessly as "GUESS WHAT!!111!!"

I was just curious: has anyone heard of other fandom "religions"? Translating *Hamlet* into Klingon or Sindarin or something like that doesn't count: it's extreme, yes, but not a religion.

In other news---

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:01:37 GMT

I'm going to get back to simming soon. I've been blogging and other stuff and letting things slide (and also getting tight pants from too many calories.) Last night, no kidding, I dreamed about Cecil. He was in some kind of athletic contest with a guy half his age and refusing to pack it in. There's probably a reason he's gone on to have a life of his own way out of my control: I think he's the most independent of my characters, and sometimes, frankly, he scares me.

So, because Cecil wants me to, probably because I left him on vacation, and because I'm not getting anything done, I am getting back to playing TODAY.