ScavHunt has commenced! I'm not doing too much this year -- more than last year, less than the previous year -- but of course I read the list over and I've put in some hours at my team's HQ. This year I defected from the FIST (which I still love regardless) to the Grad Student/Alumni team (at least partly because I find it so hilarious that I was ( Read more... )

Me and SomethingAwful: A Love Story involving piranha, limericks about my breakup, etc.

Ever since I discovered SomethingAwful, I've had a strange affection for it (who couldn't love a site whose tagline is, "The Internet makes you stupid"?). Housemate Brett recently characterized me as loving SA "to a fault". I can't actually remember what I ( Read more... )

Lots of random stuff to post. This post will be recipes.

Incredibly Awesome and Easy Caramel Brownies

These are seriously almost the best thing I have ever tasted, and the only things that beat them require way more work to make. Apparently they were invented by styletax; I was provided the recipe by igor_47 via cruft2 boxes German chocolate cake mix ( Read more... )

Well! I'm back in Chicago. I'm glad to be home, jetlag and all. I feel a little weak, but I think that's just because of recent digestive problems, which will no doubt solve themselves now that I'm back in a vegetarian co-op. I irrationally miss some nectarines that I purchased in Germany and meant to eat on the plane, which were sniffed out by ( Read more... )

Sorry if you emailed me and I haven't answered. Ten thousand people apparently decided that the best time to get in touch with me was right when I left the country. I'll answer email as I can ( Read more... )

As seen in the unbelievably awesome RPGnet thread proposing a "flamepunk" setting:

I thought I'd already explained this but your disagreements indicate I've managed to be unclear enough for some people to completely miss what I was trying to say, so let me try to clarify again.

I have to salute a master.

(Real post soon, I hope.)

Cate: Don't look at me like that!
Ed: You lost the right to say how I should look at you when you bought a purple iPod.

I found a particularly entertaining 1930 book innocently hanging about in the Literary Criticism section of Bookstore Y: a collection of epigrams about conversation, titled (amazingly) Conversation. It's by André Maurois, translated by Yvonne Dufour. On my dramatic and much-delayed flights this afternoon, I read Conversation and typed up the bits ( Read more... )

I discovered this photo only recently, though apparently it's obsessed such luminaries as Andy Warhol:


( Read more... )

When I listen to this song, I think of twining bodies in candlelight; sinuous silhouetted dancers; heavy wild-rose scent. I think of a dark-eyed woman in dark red lipstick coming off the dance floor, lowering her eyes, extending her hand, smiling. A flash of white teeth. Husky voice, drift of subtle musk. Hiding the moment of hesitation, taking ( Read more... )