seankreynolds
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "seankreynolds" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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02:53 pm
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Selling some painted minis
Now that I have a bunch of them out of storage, it's time for some of them to go to better homes. The list is here.
Tags: miniatures, selling
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12:11 am
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Labor Pains
Genesis 3:16: To the woman he said,"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children."
So in our world, if you are a Biblical Literalist, you believe that women have painful childbirth because God made it so.
So if you're talking about a fantasy world where God of the Bible is not the creator of the human race ... do human women have awful labor pains? If so, why? If the creator god/gods were benign beings, why would they design the humans to have painful, risky labor? Would the elf, dwarf, halfling, and gnome deities (all generally "good" pantheons) do the same? I can't picture a serene elven female screaming her head off and yelling insults at her husband while giving birth....
I think the next campaign I run, there won't be serious labor pains or high maternal mortality, assuming those deities responsible for the race in question are good in any sense of the word. And before you argue real-world birth biology (which I understand well), a fantasy world doesn't have to operate that way ... the birth canal could expand more, the baby could compress more, whatever, the point is that you can hand-wave the real-world biology without having to come up with some goofy explanation why (and I include, "oh it's magic" as a goofy explanation).
Current Mood:  tired
Tags: biology, birth, gaming
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12:26 pm
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mini auction ends today!
The minis I'm auctioning on eBay end in a few hours. Go get 'em, my babies* momma** gotta eat!
* By "babies" I mean my cats.
* My "momma" I mean me.
Tags: ebay, miniatures
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12:45 pm
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Blade, meet neck
I got laid off today, along with Hyrum and a bunch of other Upper Deck people (names still accruing). Wheeee!
Current Mood:  frustrated
Tags: employment, layoff, upper deck
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08:16 am
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When did I get old?
Yesterday morning I hurt my back. It's on the left side just below my shoulder blade, some sort of muscle thing (not skeletal). Unfortunately, that particular muscle is used for at least half of my left arm motions, half of my back motions overall, and about a third of my right arm motions. Makes it hard to dress, reach, bend, all stuff that you take for granted.
That's annoying, but the really annoying part is how I injured myself.
Completely randomly. While drying myself off after a shower. Everything normal, then YEEEK OW OW OW OW DON'T MOVE DON'T MOVE DON'T MOVE OW OW OW SIT DOWN wow much better.
I can understand hurting myself lifting something, or reaching too far or sleeping weird. But I was awake for an hour, no problems, and then when I'm drying my back this one spot freaks out.
This is a thing that happens to old men, not strapping young fellows like me. When did I get old?
Current Mood: grumpy
Tags: injury, old, pain
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02:45 pm
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Orson Scott Card = do not want
I've read some of OSC's books (Firefly, Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus) and liked them. But now I can't stomach the idea of giving this man any more of my money. Why?
( See why after the cut )
Current Mood: irritated
Tags: jk rowling, orson scott card
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08:53 am
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holy crap, George Bernard Shaw!
"A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses."
I totally dig that. :)
Tags: george bernard shaw, vegetarianism
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02:45 pm
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Selling some minis
Having unpacked all my minis, I've found some that I and Willow never got around to painting and probably won't ever paint, as well as some that I painted and probably won't use again, so I posted them on eBay. Some PCs, centaurs, frogmen (inshon), a Roman-armored gorilla, and a weird pillar. Auctions end Friday, May 9.
As I go through my minis I'll probably be doing more of these, but some of them require touch-ups after being in storage and then shipped cross-country.
Tags: ebay, miniatures
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01:25 pm
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Gay Rights
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wickedthought asked people to post with the title Gay Rights if they believe in gay rights.
I don't believe you should have fewer rights than another person simply because of who you are attracted to or who you fall in love with. Gays should be able to marry, with no legal hoops that straights don't deal with . Gays should be able to adopt kids, with no legal hoops that straights don't deal with. And so on.
And before anyone says "What about bestiality? What about pedophilia? Should those be allowed too?" No, not for straights or gays because animals and children are not consenting adults for marriage, sex, etc. It's not legal for a straight person to marry or have sex with a dog or child of either gender, it shouldn't be legal for gays. Gays aren't asking for any rights except the rights that straights already have.
Tags: gay rights, homosexuality, politics
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08:54 am
[Link] | I don't normally answer these things but this one had some questions that piqued my interest. Borrowed from arya.
1) Do you like bleu cheese?
I think I had it for the first time about a year ago on a veggie burger. I don't think I could separate the taste but I've put it on salad now and then, so I suppose I do. I mean, it's cheese, it's hard to not like cheese.
2) Have you ever smoked heroin?
Nope. Nor marijuana, and I've had 1 drag on one tobacco cigarette, that was enough for me. But if you want to do any of those things, hey, who am I to tell you not to?
( More after the cut )
Tags: books, meme, music, questions
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10:55 am
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Dear Windows: Renaming Files
Dear Windows OS,
If I want to rename a file, I have to do one of the following:
A) click it to select it, then choose File-->Rename
B) click it to select it, then Alt-F-M (key shortcut version of option A)
C) right-click it, then use the Rename popup menu item at the bottom of the list
D) right-click it and press R (key shortcut of option C)
On my Mac, if I want to rename a file, I click it and hit Return.
In my work I often have to rename a LOT of files. I'll get 100 pieces of art from an art order, with the filenames decided by the arthouse, and I need to rename them by the name of the character or spell the art depicts, then later by the ID number of the card they're assigned to. That's a lot of extra clicking. Why is renaming files so difficult on Windows?
Tags: windows
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10:44 am
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Dear Windows, Open Multiple Files
Windows OS -
When I have one item selected, and I hit Enter, you open that one item.
When I have multiple items selected, and I hit Enter, you choose one of those items at random and open it but not the others.
When I have multiple items selected, and I choose File-->Open, you choose one of those items at random and open it but not the others.
Perhaps if I have several items selected and I hit Enter or select File-->Open, I want them ALL open?
If I select up to three items and hit Ctrl-Enter, you open all three. Sometimes you turn the existing window into the window for one of those three items; sometimes you open all three in new windows.
If I select more than three items and hit Ctrl-Enter, sometimes you open three, sometimes you open them all, sometimes you pick a number between 3 and the number selected and pick that many random items to open. Sometimes you reuse an existing window for one of them like my previous point, sometimes they're all new windows.
Why do you have three different commands for what is essentially the same behavior? On my Mac, I can use Command-O to open one item, two items, or a hundred items, and it opens all of them, not some of them chosen at random.
Tags: windows
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08:45 am
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Money down, money up
Had a momentary panic when my checking account balance dropped unexpectedly. Turns out my check to the Federal IRS cleared. That was fast, I only sent it on April 15.
Had a momentary boggle when my checking account balance lifted unexpectedly. Turns out my refund from the state tax board (deposited electronically by them) went through. That was fast, I only sent it on April 15.
Phew!
Current Mood:  bouncy
Tags: bank, taxes
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01:53 pm
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grats to Ryan and Chris!
My friend Ryan's wife had their first baby last night! Congrats and Happy Tax Baby Day, you two crazy kids!
Edit: And because we are internet geeks, here is a video of their new baby.
Current Mood:  cheerful
Tags: baby, ryan
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08:30 am
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Courtesy of my pal AngelMcC.
Current Mood: amused
Tags: cats, humor
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09:07 am
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Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Oddly enough, I had never read any of these D&D-formative stories, though I enjoyed the write-ups of the characters in the 1st edition Deities & Demigods. I picked up Vol I of White Wolf's published compilation a couple years ago, but didn't get a chance to read it before it went into storage. Now that I'm receiving some of my stuff, I stuck it in my suitcase for my New York trip a couple weeks ago.
Here's the thing. The author Fritz Leiber, had been writing F&GM stories since 1939. This book (Lankhmar: Talkes of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Volume 1) contains their origin stories and the story of their first adventure together, which Leiber wrote in 1962 and 1970. So their very first book in the series, the one intended (I assume) to showcase Lieber's stories to those who've never read him, skips twenty years of Lankhmar stories that made the characters popular, and instead went with their origin stories.
So most of the book is Fafhrd, or the Gray Mouser, but not so much Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. And their first adventure together basically amounts to them taking vengeance on the thieves' guild and then fleeing the city of Lankhmar, never to return (but of course they do, as the previously-published stories all take place after these origin tales). Rather than giving me the earlier stories that grabbed everyone's attention about these cool characters and location, we learn backstory, when (as 20 years of books proves) the backstory wasn't what was selling the books in the first place. Sorta like a publisher in the future getting the rights to republish an obscure little world called "Middle-Earth" and their first book is The Silmarillion, which isn't the best story in the series. :p
Strange.
Anyway, the stories were an entertaining read. Nothing too exciting (which is why I want to read the earlier ones that actually grabbed everyone's attention) but worth reading.
One bit I particularly liked was a spell cast by Mouse (in his origin story, before he becomes the Gray Mouser), as he was for a time apprenticed to a White Magic sorcerer. He has to evade some people who want to kill him, so he hides in the forest and chants this little bit to confuse his pursuers and cover his trail:
"North be south. East be west. Copse be glade and gully crest. Dizziness all paths invest. Leaves and grasses, do the rest."
Now I'm not much for rhyming magic, having seen far too much of it done very poorly, but I dig that.
Tags: d&d, lankhmar
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08:05 am
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Iraq on the installment plan
Six more months and everything will be perfect.
Current Mood:  numb
Tags: bush, iraq, mccain, politics, war
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11:10 pm
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hip hop + line dance
I love this commercial. :)
LINK
Current Mood: amused
Tags: commercial, hiphop, ipod, line dance, music
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10:27 am
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Dear Macintosh
If I have two computers running OS X and I physically connect them with an ethernet cable, there should be an easy easy easy way for me to transfer files between the two computers. I shouldn't have to turn on file sharing, appletalk, airport, internet options, sharing options, or any of a dozen other things and keep restarting to make them acknowledge each other. And when I finally get them connected, transfer a bunch of files, and go to bed, when I get up in the morning I should still be able to use the connection I established last night, especially if I haven't restarted or turned off either computer. And if for some reason a glitch causes the connection to fail in the night (like one computer went to sleep and this confused the other computer), it should be easy easy easy to re-establish this connection and copy the remaining files.
But it's not.
I have two smart, user-friendly computers designed via hardware and software to network easily, and I can't get them to talk. It's actually easier for me to make the second computer share the first computer's internet over a wireless connection than it is for me to use a hardware connection between the two computers.
My solution? Copy the remaining files to a CD, then copy the CD files to the second computer.
Current Mood: annoyed
Tags: mac
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10:59 am
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Dear Windows: keeping a window in the background
Hi, Windows.
If I click a link and you start up your steam engine and get those gears turning so you can start the 45-second cycle necessary to launch Firefox, and I switch to another application because I don't want to watch nothing happen for 45 seconds*, don't interrupt whatever I'm looking at by putting an interim and BLANK Firefox window on top of what I'm looking at. I know I launched Firefox but I'm doing something else while waiting for that. And don't interrupt it again whenever a not-significant-to-the-user chunk of data loads and causes a "refresh" of that BLANK Firefox window. And don't interrupt it a third time when you're finally done launching Firefox. If I put it in the background again twice, don't bring it to the foreground a third time. FYI on my Mac if I launch something, I'll sit in the background until I get around to it.
(No, this isn't just Firefox, Windows does this for all my programs.)
And if I open a bunch of files at once, and each of them requires some sort of confirmation (like a Photoshop file created on another computer and the color profile doesn't match), don't interrupt my foreground work for every single one. I don't care if you have to hang in the background with 20 confirmation dialogue boxes waiting for the queue, don't interrupt my foreground activity! You know what my Mac does when a background app wants attention? It bounces its icon on the Dock. It doesn't shove itself into the foreground over and over again.
And Windows people think their UI is friendly? No, they're just used to the abuse and don't know any better.
*Note: I also like it how Windows might go 10-30 seconds without letting you know it's doing anything. Did I misclick? Is it launching? I'd better click it again. Still nothing? I'll click ... oh, crap, there's the hourglass, I guess it worked the first time ... which means it worked the second time, which means now it's opening up TWO copies of that appliciation.** Whereas on my Mac, it starts bouncing the app's icon on the Dock right away so I know it received my command.
**Which, mind you, doesn't make ANY sense. If I have Word open and I click another Word document, it should open that document in the currently-open Word application, not start up another copy of Word just for that file! In fact, if I click a Word file and it has to launch Word and then I click another Word file, it should stick that in the queue and wait for Word to finish loading and just put the second doc into that ONE Word app running.
Current Mood: annoyed
Tags: mac, windows
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