For those of you who have been keeping up with my gaming habits, I have been on-and-off playing Ys 6: The Ark of Napishtim. Well, I have finally beaten "Zonplas," the annoying crab-armed giant moth creature (who is summoned by a sphinx-shaped pixie). I apparently way over leveled. At the end of my monster-mashing session, Adol is level 30 and ( Read more... )

I just got back from the Eaton conference. I got many books signed from Ray Bradbury, Gregory Benford, Howard Hendrix, and others. I found out that Ray Bradbury curses like a sailor and Larry Niven likes to take his coffee with half and half cream and honey. So much to talk about but I am tired.

I went to see the new Chronicals of Narnia with laryna6. ( Read more... )

laryna6 are taking a break of sorts as of about 5:30 p.m. today. We remain ever close friends though.

Last weekend had me feeling quite guilty for a variety of reasons. The first was that a very old friend got me the perfect Christmas gift. So much did I want it though, that without hesitation I had bought it without knowing someone else had already bought it for me. The moment was rather awkward and I doubt I handled it well as, although I was ( Read more... )

laryna6 gave me Fuyumi Ono's The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Wind.

I have the forms printed out, but I need air in my tires and then I am ready to fly. By the end of this weekend, I am hoping to give natalie_lily her Vampire Hunter D collection back and loan her Antonin Scalia's A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law as well as Sotirios A. Barber's The Constitution of Judicial Power. There is so much to do ( Read more... )

Christopher Darden was one of the defense attorneys on the criminal case for which I was voir dired.

I got excused from service and (a part from the annoyance of the voir dire process) it is likely a repeatable performance. I discovered just how perverse the incentives are for jury service. There is a huge economic incentive for people to try and get out. So wide spread is this incentive that they had a parade of pep talk speakers (including a ( Read more... )

• Roediger, Henry L. III; McDermott, Kathleen B. Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition Vol. 21(4), Jul 1995, 803-814.
  Two experiments (modeled after J. Deese's 1959 study) revealed remarkable levels of false recall and false recognition in a list learning ( Read more... )

The party at blubear's was great. snark_hunter and natalie_lily were there. I had my finest first-person shooter moment in a sniping competition, which is part of the video game competition that was held. There were video game survivor kits for the competitors. Some table-top role playing was done Monday morning where operation "Don't Fuck Up" was commenced. All-in-all, it ( Read more... )