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Monday, July 2, 2012

April 2012

General Stories/Ideas for Stories:
A Thousand Generations of Dragon Riders - Ana Mardoll recommended this, and I am still basking in that fact.  I'll use her description: So here is a dragon rider story that takes into account the evolution of weaponry, agriculture, and mathematics as a function of a fantasy world with dragon riders. And it is awesome.

My Zombie Apocalypse Team Part 1: Boring Exposition - Basically, for this meme I bumped into on facebook to work it is necessary for myself, Bella Swan, Tsukasa, and JC Denton to be in the same place at the same time.  This is the first step toward that.  (Snarky Bella because I like her more, and she has the truck that can travel through time.)
My Zombie Apocalypse Team Part Alpha: General thoughts on getting the team together - Exactly how do you get the four of us in the same place?  And what does it even mean.  We'll see here.
My Zombie Apocalypse Team Part A: Timeline - Time Travel is involved, here is the timeline.  This covers the years 1090 to 2052.
My Zombie Apocalypse Team Part 2: First Encounter - I wish I could say it's well written, but it very much is not.
My Zombie Apocalypse Team Part 4ish: Assessing the underground - At some point I should probably write part three.  This is a conversation had in downtime, thinking about the future.  And I just noticed this isn't from April.  It was a day late for that.  I've already put it here, it can stay.
My Zombie Apocalypse Team Part ?: Semi-final Conversation/Confrontation - If it were Deus Ex confronting Page would be the last thing done, it isn't Deus Ex, so it won't be.  This is sort of a rough draft of the scene though.  Written before Part 4ish.

General Twilight based stuff:
Bella's response to human collateral - It was said that if someone Bella knew died because of Bella's association with vampires it "might have gotten through to Bella's self absorbed considerations of safety for her and only her."  I thought this more likely.
Avenging Jessica - A follow up to the previous.  Note that Jessica isn't the object of avenging, avenging modifies the noun Jessica.  This is the story of an avenging Jessica, and her intended target.  And Alice.  Alice is in it too.

Random Pile of Twilight - A bunch of unrelated things.  The inexplicable desire for Twilight Monkey Island style, strange uses of the word desolation, the possibility Charlie is capable of photosynthesis, not listening to something in the first place if repeating it could have dire consequences, Charlie hoping that Bella is gaining a social life, quoting The Second Coming, more implication that Lauren is a Lovecraftian abomination, and more.  Except for the "more", I actually did list everything.

Snarky Twilight stuff:
Wouldn't you prefer a good game of chess? - Bella researches vampires online with her trusty computer.
Chapter 7 wrap up - Bella talking about her essay, telling Mike to leave her alone, attempting to use Pavlovian methods to get the text to do what she wants, finding something she and Charlie can both enjoy, and discussing the relative safety of being the narrator.

From my slow trek through .hack//Sign:
Six impossible things - Mimiru and Bear have awkward tending toward catastrophic meeting with Tsukasa in which Tsukasa's situation and what happened the Silver Knight are both discussed.  Also Sora shows more awareness of Tsukasa's mental state than anyone in Twilight ever shows of Bella's.

Other Stuff:
"If the government can do this, what can't it do?" - I answer a Supreme Court Justice's question, as reported, with a long list of things he should have already known.
"If the government can do this, what, what else can it not do?" - I look at the exact wording of the question, and the context, I also offer two broad answers (as opposed to the many specific ones of the previous post) and I finally point out that, usually, the only time reasoning like that of the Supreme Court Justice in question is ever seen is in the plans of supervillains.

Hydroponics - Pictures and discussion of my prolific spider plant and it's offspring which I've been storing in various containers of water.

I made the paper - My picture was on the front page, this was the first time I talked about Selma Botman, President of the University of Southern Maine, and her general mismanagement, jerkishness, and overall badness.  It would not be the last.

I'm Tired - Talking about the state I was in after a period of inactivity.

To the person in the Czech Republic searching for information on Selma Botman - Someone in the Czech Republic came to the blog a few times via searches for Selma Botman and the no confidence vote against her that was then pending.  I wondered how that person even knew about the goings on at the University of Southern Maine, what their relationship to the matter was, and that sort of thing.  So I asked.  I never did get an answer.

For the record, the no confidence vote took place early the next month, the reporting on it ranged from inconsistent to bad, and I eventually just summed up the actual facts of the matter without adding much commentary.  If one would prefer not getting their news from me, I also reprinted a press release which, unlike most of the reporting I saw, appears to be entirely accurate.

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2 comments:

  1. What's happened on the Selma Botman case since the vote of no confidence? Has the Board done anything?

    Interestingly, I just looked up her Wikipedia biography, and it doesn't mention anything about the controversy or the vote of no confidence.

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    1. I don't know. I've been out of contact with the university since the then present semester ended, focusing primarily on my own situation. So I really don't know.

      Just checked wikipedia. Someone named Ptortx, who has previously identified zirself as "Senior Advisor to President Botman" deleted the entire section about it (called "Controversy") on June 13th.

      Fortunately it's not like deleting a section from wikipedia makes it lost for all time. Unfortunately the information that Wikipedia contains on the topic stops the day after the vote. (And the tenses in the section could use some work.) So it doesn't really provide any useful information.

      That said, the attempted erasure probably does provide some useful information. Less than a month ago she had a member of her staff attempt to erase the no confidence vote and some of the reasons for it from history* which does not seem like the action of someone who is suffering from the fallout of said vote.

      It's difficult to erase something from the past when it still has noticeable consequences in the present. If she thinks she can erase it then that implies she thinks it's over and done with. Which implies that not much came of it.

      That said, again, I don't know for sure.

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      *It won't work,about 65% of the Google results for the phrase "Selma Botman" contain the phrase "no confidence".

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