"See, here's the thing; if I die, you'll all wink out of existence. If it helps, it won't be intentional."

Globally broadcast.

And no, I've never imagined that. Now I am, and it's frightening. Thanks a lot for all your apparent grief, 'brother'(!)

Bone marrow potentially (I've read a leaflet and understand roughly what's involved, and wouldn't do it for fun; I'm not currently on the register). Kidney only to my brother, and I would judge him severely on his lifestyle before deciding.

important edit: I should say that I am on the organ register for after my death. Once I cease to exist, I won't have an opinion. So here I'm talking about live donations specifically.

So, public gaming announcement: The BSG board game is ace, neat and awesome, I need not have doubted this, and now I really need to watch the series, because it was a tiny bit distracting having to mute my hearing while the others were chuckling over stuff that was presumably spoilery and sounded amusing. (I have so far avoided BSG precisely because I've been into similar things - Fartscrape¹, ST:TNG etc - never all that obsessively, just to a "watch it if it's on or tape it if I remember" degree, but I haven't been after another long-running thing to watch for a while. But now I'm out of Dexter until the fatal entrance of season three under my battlements, and before I get into CSI, let's give the Cylons a whirl.)

Damn. Left my portable drive at Slen's. Must make him bring it when he comes round this evening.

It's Slen's birthday! I have bought him things! Slen is very spoiled brat!


(zzzz Last night had recurring epiphany that what I need in a partner is someone whom I can be control-freakish with and spoil rotten. i.e. basically a dog. The four-year-old me is on the line from 1986 and would like to confirm that baby brothers are an excellent substitute.)


Speaking of control freaks and being spoiled, Paul got me the complete Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes on DVD for my birthday (which was last month). YESSSSS. Watched a bit of ASiB at Slen's this morning before getting bus to work. (Hey, I wasn't even cheating, it really was the first ep on the first disc in the box.) Can I just say hell to the yes. Ree, expect clips or screenies or general squeeing Irène rawr. OMD she wears a top hat. WHAT. ♥

Also from Paul, Of Mice and Aliens, a children's book pertaining to Asperger's: I was interested in it, hence it being on my wishlist, and it's pretty good. Read it in a few minutes last night and had a few chuckles over Aspergerisms in it. I'll show my mother, who teaches special needs kids - I reckon she should lend it around, actually.


¹ Pilot and Holmes in a room together = Mutt might actually die of awesome.


Need Holmes icon. Nurse, break out the Pagets.

Herm: In vain my lap you knead (Piper: prrrrrr) - Don't purr.
Your prayers I do not heed (Piper: prrrrrr) - Don't purr.
'Tis true I smile, but don't suppose
A curling lip forbearance shows.
Oh no.
I'm very cross indeed - yes, very cross. (Piper: prrrrrr)
Don't purr.

Herm: Your disrespectful cheek (Piper: prrrrrr) - Don't purr.
Provokes my dogly pique (Piper: prrrrrr) - Don't purr.
You break my Law. You are my foe.
I smile because I hate you so.
You know.
You very portly freak. You portly freak. (Piper: prrrrrr)
Don't purr.

Piper: My disrespectful cheek (Herm: Don't speak!) - rub rub -
Prrovokes your dogly pique (Herm: Eek!) - rub rub -
If that's your frank critique -

Herm: Don't purr.

Piper: Purr purr.

Herm: Uurgh.

View the original post at Black Dog Blog

My code of ethics makes this a no-brainer: "whoever is forcing this choice on me is the one that gets stiffed".

Although, fortunately, I'm not ever likely to be in this contrived kind of situation.

---

Also, a link for Charlycrash and Zenbie

She got back from Jersey today.

Piper apparently left her a quite rude note on the hob, along with several clumps of shed fur. He did not appear particularly pleased, relieved, displeased or surprised to see her reappear. He decided she meant food. That's cats for you.

This is when I found out she'd been reading (and responding to) Piper's blog updates from a public, shared computer in the guest house lobby. This meant that her "raucous laughter" was audible to the other guests, who had to have the source explained to them.

...

( Read more... )

...

Went out and voted in the Euro elections this evening, too.

On ther fiffth dai the KATT roaz from its poofe...

( Too Doo Lisst )

ey kneede a purrsonul asistent!!!!!!!

dere mumiiii,

( disrigard larst entree )

dier mmmui,

( HISS HISS SCRATCH )

Der muemy.

( The YOOTH of TWO DAY!!!! )

Deer mumiy

( LIES!! it is aul lies )

DerE mUmmy,

( Ey hav hadd a horible day!!!!! )

Well, it's official, I never ever want to grow a heart...

...But one situation right now is awfully cute, and I'm happy for those involved.

(Enigmatic post, because it's none of our business really.)

View the original post at Black Dog Blog

The owner of our cat has been away overnight.

As often happens, said cat left her a note this morning before I left for work, to complain that he had been cruelly neglected and mistreated, not fed and made to sleep in a ditch ("and knott on lapp or HeRMunz BEDD (lies)!!").

In actual fact we spent a quiet evening rewatching Dexter episodes. However, immediately after he placed his note, I let him outside to pee in a rain shower, thus helpfully ensuring that his pyperbole was justified after the fact.

The best-received note of complaint was a few weeks ago. In it, he claimed he had been insulted by having a pill jammed down his "skrawnee NEKk" and said he was going outside to sit under his tree "in high DUDJIN!!!!".

Cats aren't people, which must be why it's so much fun personifying the ungrateful little bastards.

View the original post at HellHound.net

(Fri 3/4/09, 24:44:)

Suitov: I must goes sleepz.
Slenneton: M'kay. I probably should too. Kat did, a while ago.
Slenneton: Also, why does McAfee Site Advisor think that darklyrics is unsafe?!
Suitov: Because it's gay, gay for YOU.
Slenneton: Who can withstand its cockfucking?
Suitov: McAfee to Spider-Lyric: Hello! I am so gay! For you!
Suitov: Mkay sleepy now, also must find cat and punish it by forcing it to sleep on my bed.
Slenneton: Destroy.
Suitov: It knows it has sinned.
Suitov: That's why it's hiding and cowering, probably on the sofa.
Slenneton: It knows it has done wrong.
Suitov: It loves to know it has done wrong.
Slenneton: It loves to have bisczikxsczs.
Suitov: That too, but it shan't have <s>m</s>any.
Slenneton: Strikethrough not work at this end. *gets the point anyway*
Suitov: Yes, that was the joke.
Slenneton: Buh?
Suitov: <div tone="ironic">Fake HTML is terribly, side-splittingly now. It is hip.</div>
Slenneton: <Best-Man>Yes I am!
Suitov: Or maybe, just possibly, I've been hanging around web geeks for too long.

Maybe.

Either way, bed.</Best-Man>
Slenneton: Hah! Close your own Best-Man tag!
Suitov: ^<blink>O</blink>.O^
Suitov: (You might have to think about that one.)
Slenneton: Not really. Also, I bet when you find it, it's got its tongue out.
Suitov: The tongue and drool are getting worse, I swear <ins>at</ins> it.
Suitov: G'nite.
Slenneton: Night, fart-face. Probs see ya tomozz.
Suitov: Yus, you'd better.

</body></html>
Slenneton: Stop it.
Suitov: I just did, you can't talk now, it's past the end of the page.
Suitov: You're violating standards.
Slenneton: Yeah? Well at least I <i>have</i> standards!
Suitov: ...night, mum, last, violated, yeah yeah.

We really do talk our own language. It is AWSUM. Awsum-ese.

View the original post at HellHound.net

I am currently pwning a pair of jeans that fit me now, and did not before. So anyway, apart from a little writing and gaming with Paul I haven't done much that's interesting these last few days. I've been sleeping a lot and suspect, from the state of my nasal plumbing, that I'm coming down with something not quite bad enough to keep me off work. Well, it never is, is it?

Here, have a story: Apples and Apparitions, or Brimstone and Bribery

Oh, and I've been having wacky dreams, in a boring and still unbearably domestic definition of wacky. One involved my father writing a congratulations card to me, thinking I'd married one of my friends because I'd changed my name. Later on in the dream I was telling three friends about his mistake. We all found the situation funny. I remember that one of the girls was wearing a khimar. She wasn't anyone I know. Are my dreams now to be designed to fulfil Equality Commission quotas or something?

Going to Slen's house this evening for a party. There will be people there I don't know and I won't be able to eat anything or drink anything, so I shan't report further unless by some chance it isn't a mightily awkward waste of time.

View the original post at HellHound.net

SMALL version of dad's birthday picture. The full thing is A4 sized at 300dpi, so absolutely massive on a screen.

Finished and sent to him at 23:58 last night, so still technically his birthday...

Right, he's seen it now so I can post this. He kinda seemed to like it, sort of. And told me about some other painting of her that she's just got in the last few weeks, that one by a friend from some museum.

View the original post at HellHound.net

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) was... strange. I'm going to get the original and watch it, because this was not at all as I remember the original.

The ending wasn't resolved very well (what happened? Why does clockwork suddenly not work? Whut?), there was insufficient justification for a change of mind, and the line, my favourite line, "Gort, Klaatu barada nikto" was conspicuously and tragically absent. (I thought I caught Klaatu saying it once or twice, actually, but you'd only have noticed it if you were expecting the line.) It also took away the main character's big moment, replacing it with a muddied and unclear moment of self-sacrifice or perhaps survival against odds (no way to tell!) for Reeves's character. I also expected the biological altruism angle (John Cleese's character) to be remarked upon specifically. The main character had an adopted child. They missed an obvious theme there.

Good things were largely the effects: Gort and the subsequent effects of its apocalyptic tantrum. I have a real weakness for metallic insects dissolving things and burrowing into people's veins. I liked that a lot. Klaatu's escape was quite stupid, but you couldn't help enjoying it with the technokinesis and the badass suit.

The science throughout, however, was atrocious. Animals need plants. Something hitting the planet at a tenth the speed of light would destroy a large area, never mind any helicopters flying towards the landing site (WHAT WHY ARE YOU IN THE SKY AT THE PREDICTED IMPACT TIME WHY?), and let alone what it'd probably do to the atmosphere before it got to Manhattan (WHY ALWAYS FREAKING NEW YORK WE LAUGHED SO HARD AT THIS). Also, aliens with DNA? Puhleaze. DNA isn't 'genes': it's Earth's implementation of the concept of genes, which are a pretty good idea in themselves. It's possible that aliens would have genes. But their genes would, I imagine, be overwhelmingly likely not to be DNA. To take another example: aliens having computers, definitely possible. Aliens arriving with computers that run MacOS, impossible. Oh, hang on a moment, WILL SMITH, I AM LOOKING AT YOU, XENU BOY.

More reviews (with spoilers) from IMDb here. I agree with pretty much all the criticisms—except that Keanu Reeves playing a blank-faced alien is, IMO, the role he was born for.

Ah well, so I can still say Klaatu barada nikto and leave people none the wiser.

After the film, the three of us (dad, Slen and I) went to eat, and I told my father about my change of name. I think he took it well. (Well, he thinks it's an extremely eccentric choice, which it most definitely is.) His lack of knowledge of Shakespeare is very much mitigated by the fact that he knew who Diogenes was.

Ah, Diogenes, my hero. Is it pathetically sad that I've been really tempted to register tubphilosopher dot com for some time?

We also chatted about other stuff, like my intention to go for publication with Mews, the possibility of Slen getting a job, and, yeah. Stuff. A good, normal catch-up type chat after the main news. I don't think I could've hoped for that to go any better.

I was most nervous telling him about the surname, of course, because I still had his name. My mother changed her surname by usage some time after they divorced, many years ago; I chose not to at that time. I still think that was the right decision for me at that point. I wasn't ready. I didn't particularly want to make such a change then. In addition, there wasn't anything I wanted to change to—any other name I chose wouldn't have been mine either.

Baskerville is mine. It's unquestionably English with a decent pedigree (which is important to offset the unusual abbreviation "Herm"), it's a reference to giant Sherlockian monster dog and it has overtones of John Baskerville's attractive, old-fashioned-looking typeface. And it has an enjoyable rhythm and sound. First syllable stress and a skuh in the middle.

The fact that it's a B name is pure coincidence, really, but there are a few of those in the family. On my mother's side, anyway. Dad's side has a few Ps. I don't think I'd ever have plumped for another P; it's too plosive. Anything I can't say to a gerbil without causing it to flinch is just mean.

View the original post at HellHound.net

Cold today, indoors and out (less so indoors now I've complained to the appropriate person and she's apparently fixed the overzealous air con). The Metrolink was buggered earlier today; the machine they use to clear ice off the tracks was broken, according to t'radio.

I haven't been in a very good place mentally since Slen moved out. Things have been tense at best: not an improvement, and I'd say overall worse. Frankly, I've felt bullied on a number of occasions - nothing a normal person would consider omg awful, just being forced into stress situations (eg loud noise) and suppressive atmospheres (eg "shut up or you'll get extra chores"), and generally belittled (eg "oh, complaining again are you").

Perhaps I miss him, too. I won't know that until next time I manage to interpret a hint of emotion in my thoughts. It's a bit awkward being autistic. Rather than one day feeling "man, I miss so-and-so", you have to wonder "do I miss so-and-so?" and wait until you find yourself thinking of them, perhaps try to estimate the ratio of positive and negative thoughts you have towards them, and then work out what that means. (For example, when I miss someone I don't idealise them; I remember irritating things about them and fantasise about telling them exactly what I think of them. I also remember irritating things about people I am glad I don't see any more, and fantasise about telling them exactly what I think of them. You see the problem...)

I hadn't got to see very much of him recently anyway. It's still a bit of new girlfriend syndrome, and she seems every bit as obsessive and disorganised as he is. (She is only relatively young, though.)

Paul's off in Ireland for most of this week, too.

Lost hardly any weight over the last week, which was expected because I've been trying eating green vegetables as well as the sachets and imagine I've put plenty of weight of chlorophyll and water into my formerly empty innards. However, if I don't lose much during this week I'll know something's going wrong. I have to admit that eating until I'm satiated is a relief. I'm eating once a day and as much as I feel like (because, come on, it's cabbage, sprouts, spinach and green beans, could we get any more lapine?). Plus hot food is definitely helpful, because I'm so cold all the time. I wish I could still wander outside barefoot in the snow, but that's evidently the price for losing so much of my body weight over the last couple of years.

I feel like nothing much is moving on other personal fronts. Everything's stalled. Oh, except that I awkwardly 'came out' as neuter-critter on a mailing list. One or two of the people on there met me IRL, so I thought it wise to take the opportunity when the subject (of gender options on forms) came up on-list. As usual, I think I made a pig's ear of it, but am most heartened that nobody much has reacted.

At least writing stuff feels like it's going better. Laffent Ferrl's brother introduced himself to me properly this morning and offered his services as an occasional viewpoint character (i.e. I like him and he'd be fun to follow), and I even remembered what I had been planning to call him. I don't always write this stuff down, because I come up with it at random moments, so I had known his first name at one point and then forgot it.

Laffent is a seven-foot, beautiful, blue, curvy, longbow-wielding, soldierly, proportionately muscular woman. (A very nice specimen of orchood, if you happen to like that sort of thing.) She got the looks and the brains in this family. Her brother's the charmer - and a bit of a redneck, if one can use that word about people whose skin colour is determined by their literal blue blood.

View the original post at HellHound.net

1.5 kilos down this week. Hurry up, man! I wanted to be under 80 by now. (I'm 80.45, so very close really.)

Seriously though, meatcarcase, can't you find more fat to drop? Because let me tell you I don't need an atlas to find several handfuls, if you know what I mean.

Ha. Also, I am going to start eating greens and protein. I'm too desperate for them¹, and if you're careful you can do this and still stay in ketosis (aka mega weight-drop area, aka starvation). So says a friend of the family who has flirted with this diet several times. (I could draw sarcastic conclusions about its long-term efficacy in her case and her resulting qualification to give advice, but she successfully drops weight every time, and that's all I need to do. I don't do the yoyo thing too badly, not judging by holding steady for almost a year in this interval.)

Oh, and I finally have my prescription refilled as of this morning. Luckily my mother and I are on the same dosage of the same med, so there can be intercaninenecine pill-scrounging. The delay, as it turns out, is that they wanted to speak to me before refilling it, so I need to make an appt. Which means getting there and taking time off work, both of which cause me bearable anxiety.

I spent all weekend gaming round at my unbrother's house and I have surprisingly few regrets about that. Although I'm ready to make myself some art and code now. Speaking of Art with a capital A, aka Tet, I think his deadline on the art exchange is today, so I may or may not bother doing the quick sketch I'd planned. He's popular because he admins the server, so lots of ass-kissers will have given him pictures. ;)

More microformats today. I've finished converting a huge "useful contacts" table from bad HTML into better HTML plus lots of span class=vcards. My eyes are now crossing. And I've forgotten what I was actually supposed to be changing about it in the first place. Wahoo!

¹ At least, let's optimistically assume that the sustained intense urge to rip apart people/trees/Quorn roasts and gorge on their insides signifies a craving for protein and roughage. Let's have no more gentle games of rough-and-tumble with the cat only to pause and realise I'm chewing his scruff rather enthusiastically, or anything like th...
...not that I've ever done that, you realise. It was a random example, haha. Erm.
Plus, maybe I can finally stop dreaming about food. The whole "oh noes I broke my diet by accident" stress dream archetype was never cool or original, and it's looking pretttty hackneyed by now.

View the original post at HellHound.net