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Sunday Secrets

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/2009/11/sunday-secrets_07.html

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people
mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.

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Alone in London
Parris will soon be on her way home to take care of the cats, before they start rioting and have wild parties. So I'm pressing on by myself. Arrived in London a few hours ago. Signing at Forbidden Planet on the 11th.

Current Mood: lonely

rendering problem
My Firefox updated to version 3.5.5 and now the LJ entry view looks strange, missing pictures plus the horrible Times New Roman font.
On my portal page everything looks fine [www.livejournal.com/portal/], but to have the usual style by the entries I must switch to IE view:

page rendered by ff engine
page rendered by ie engine

On my old PC I have a previous version of Firefox and everything is ok there.
What can I do to solve it without switching to ie view? Is it possible they will fix it in the next firefox update?

Thanks!

Current Music: lynch. - Adore | Powered by Last.fm

Just when I think I'm feeling better... everything turns upside down...
Why is it so hard?

Current Mood: sad
Current Music: MiChi - You

Todays Random Stuffs

10:26 Using the word "holocaust" is offensive—if you're a Dem. Referencing The Holocaust is perfectly fine for GOP. is.gd/4OUm5
12:05 I can think of nowhere I would rather be LESS than in the middle of this mass of insanity downtown twurl.nl/ktaqs0 I HATE crowds.
16:26 Graphic Designer vs. Client — twurl.nl/hzj454

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter

Question: So how does LJ community modding work? OK, never mind, got it. :)

ETA: Ignore me. As is often the case, I was lucky enough to figure it out before anyone could issue me any dire warnings about my low just-find-it levels. I had to dig through FAQ after FAQ but finally I got it. Finally (I've been digging through FAQs and clicking almost every link in my account settings for like an hour). :O

This might be the stupidest question I've ever asked my flist, but yesterday or today I became a moderator of computerhelp. The mod who invited me says that means I get to approve posts and so on. My question is, how?

Even logged in, I can't see a way to see the incoming entry queue; do I have to log out and log back in as the community? If so, does that mean I need a new password that's specific to the community?

Like I said, it's probably a stupid question - *blushes* - but since I've never been invited to mod a community before (I just create my own communities), I have no idea how it works.

I'd ask the mod who invited me, but he's moving to a new place and a little time-strapped from what I gather, so I'm trying not to bother him. If anyone knows thanks in advance... :)

Current Mood: mortified

a pairing question!
Hello all! This is my first time posting here, I'm a bit nervous!

Next weekend I'm celebrating my anniversary with my SO. We're planning on having lasangna, salad and bread for dinner and molten lava cakes (these: http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/recipes/molten-chocolate-cakes-69182.aspx) for dessert.

I am wondering what kind of wine we should get that would go well with this, or two different kinds or whatever! I'm looking in lower priced wines. Normally we get shiraz, malbec, pinot noir or riesling.

Thanks for your input!

Winepod

Has anybody here heard of the Winepod? It's kind of pricey, but seems like a pretty neat tool for home wine-makers. Basically it looks (and acts) essentially like a bread machine... except for wine. (and instead of being $50, it's closer to $5000)

Just thought I'd share because it definitely seems like a cool tool for the DIY wine enthusiast, although I'm not even sure if they are still being made/sold, according to some online posts I have read...

Help! Virus?

I am currently running with Windows XP Home Edition Version 2002

Compaq presario AMD Athlon XP 2800+
2.08GHz , 448 mb of RAM

I hav recently installed Limewire on my computer, but only downloaded a dozen or so songs

When I got this computer from a friend it ran great, it was very fast, and it had Norton already installed on ot.

My husband this morning before work decided to stroll on over to sublimedirectory.com, well he said something popped up about a trojan.. and there is a new program on my computer called Alpha Antivirus, and when I tried to change/remove it from my programs, it wont let me, all it does is open that specific program and only lets me try to register the program. My question is this, is this a legit program? if so, how did it get here? And if not, how do I get rid of it? I ran Norton and nothing, it's still here and I can't close it.

TIA!

on the hunting down of ideas

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/11/on-the-hunting-down-of-ideas.html

I've been struggling lately to turn a lot of ideas I have into actual stories. I kind of feel like my writing mojo has taken a temporary leave of absence, and the harder I look for it, the harder it is to find. It has been incredibly frustrating.

This morning, in Warren Ellis' BAD SIGNAL e-mail, he said:

At least half of all writing involves just sitting and staring into space. Letting your brain out to hunt down ideas, bringing them back all warm and bloody between its teeth.

This is something that I knew to be true, but had temporarily forgotten. As writers, it's vital that we meet our deadlines, of course, but we also have to build time into our work schedule to read books, take walks, visit doctor whisky, play with our dogs, and do the other things that may not look or feel like work, but are integral to our creative process.

Thanks for the reminder, Warren, I needed to hear that.

Dublin Days
And here we are in Dublin. Ireland has been exciting but exhausting. We had a huge turnout last night for the signing at Eason's, with a queue that seemed to go on forever, but I finally scrawled everyone into submission, and afterwards I signed all the stock as well. If you missed the signing, or happen to live a thousand leagues away, you can still get an autographed copy of the SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH hardcover or any of the Ice & Fire paperbacks by phoning, emailing, or dropping by Eason's on O'Connell Street. They even have a few trade paperbacks of DREAMSONGS.

Afterwards we adjourned to a nearby pub for a lively evening of Guinness and conversation with the local fans. I met the good folk who will be running next year's Octocon, where I'll be GOH, and hoisted a few with the hardy survivors of the Eason's event. Didn't stagger back to the our hotel till after midnight, by which time Temple Bar was roaring. Ah, if only I were twenty years younger...

The Belfast event on Tuesday was also a hoot and a half. The crowd was much bigger at Dublin, but in Belfast some of the cast of the HBO pilot dropped by to sign books and meet the fans as well. My thanks to Ron Donachie, Richard Madden (Best Dressed Man in Scotland), Alfie Allen, Kit Harington, Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner (and their moms) for joining the festivities. And to the lovely Ros, Esme Bianco, who dropped by McHughes afterwards for the moot. Matthew Hughes, one of the authors who contributed to our Vance tribute anthology, also turned up at Eason's to help me sign SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH.

In between signing and mooting, I've been hanging round the shoot, trying not to get underfoot. "How is it going?" everyone wants to know. I think it's going great. Wednesday's location was amazing, so real I could hardly tell where the real castle ended and our fake castle began. I saw Bran and Tommen swatting at each other in the yard, Joffrey taunting Robb, the Hound growling at Ser Rodrik, while Arya displayed her wretched needlework to Jon above, and it all looked wonderful. Saw some of the footage from the crypts too, and that looked amazing as well. Yes, some things are not exactly as they were in the books, that's inevitable with any adaptation... but these are my characters and this is my story, and it's thrilling to see 'em come to life.

Last night in Belfast I got to meet two more of the cast, quite unexpectedly. Some of the Moroccan players were in Ireland for costume fittings. I ran into Ian McNeice for a brief moment outside the hotel, as we were waiting for our rides, and the night before we bumped into Dany -- the amazing Tamzin Merchant, who is even more beautiful in person than she is on screen -- into the dining room. What a terrific cast Nina Gold has assembled.

Also toured the Paint Hall, though we didn't do any shooting there while I was in Belfast. Some of our sets are going up, and look great. And in another part of the building the huge castle sets from the big budget (compared to us, anyway) feature YOUR HIGHNESS are still standing. Their great hall is pretty eye-popping and they built an impressive castle yard as well.

Tomorrow I'm off to London . Signing at Forbidden Planet on the 11th, Then it's off to Marrakech.

Life is magical and full of joy (but no, I have not been seeking out football scores, so don't tell me. TIVO is getting all my games).

Current Mood: excited

Todays Random Stuffs

11:18 This is absolutely grotesque:
17:09 Congressman asks the crowd to say the Pledge Of Allegiance because it “drives the liberals crazy"—then forgets a line twurl.nl/nfft5v
21:20 The Republicans finally release THEIR healthcare plan --tinyurl.com/yhxav3m --and it's comically terrible. Great job guys!

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter

I'M A LAWYER!!! well not yet.. but i passed the bar!!!!!

GDI+ WMF Integer Overflow Vulnerability

Type: Logic error
Impact of exploitation: Remote Code Execution
User Interaction: user interaction is needed
Attack Vector: Maliciously Crafted File
Rating: Medium
CVE reference: CVE-2009-2500,
Vendor Status: Responded and patched
Vulnerable systems: Internet Explorer 6 SP1,; Office Word Viewer 2003,; Excel Viewer 2003 SP3,; Office PowerPoint Viewer 2003,; Office Compatibility Pack For Word Excel Ppt 2007 ,; Expression Media All,; Office Groove Server 2007,; SQL 2000 Reporting Service SP2,; Sql Server 2005 SP2,; Visual Studio .Net 2003 SP1,; Visual Studio 2008,; Report Viewer 2005 SP1,; Report Viewer 2008,; Visual Fox Pro 6.0,; Forefront Client Security 1.0,
Summary: A vulnerability in Microsoft GDI+ may allow remote code execution.

Please visit softe.org for further information on the latest spyware virus worm and how to clean your PC

the obligatory addendum to the obligatory w00tstock post

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wwdn/~3/BYlXR7nGFmM/the-obligatory-addendum-to-the-obligatory-w00tstock-post.html

When I wrote my w00tstock post, I totally forgot to mention that we put some video interludes into the show, to make sure that we were giving the maximum A/V Club experience to the audience.

There were some very funny shorts, including Mister Bungle getting the Riff Trax treatment, the credits for Jonathan Coulton's television series, Monkey Shines, (that was cancelled after the first commercial break), and this parody commercial for Trader Joe's, which is exceptionally hilarious if you've ever shopped there:

I also neglected to mention that Kid Beyond wrote a book of puzzles he created called BOGGLE Crossdoku, and Molly Lewis has a CD of her kickass music ... you know, because it's getting to be that time of year when people typically give gifts to other people.

Also, whenever I say "...forgot to mention," I have to say "BEWARE OF HITCHHIKING GHOSTS!!1"

Because I want conflicting things. That's why it hurts.

Todays Random Stuffs

12:10 Pat Boone calls the current administration alien "vermin" who should be gassed and exterminated. That sort of talk always ends well.
18:10 This commercial for a mobile home liquidator is great:

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter

Today was okay. I continue to shoot myself in the foot each time I skip theory. Lord how I despise that class. Grawr.

I did sing in studio today. That was fun. At first I was way too nervous to even go up after last week's French debacle, but once I started and once again screwed up, I regained my composure and even got to work a bit.

Los gatos are sitting with me as we browse FB and watch Friends. I adore los gatos. They and Darren keep me sane. Ooo ooo! It's time for Grey's Anatomy instead. No, no. It's seriously time for a little nap. Maybe I'll keep Grey's on in the background while I take my little nap.

Thanksgiving needs to hurry up and get here.

I'm done with LJ friend-adds from my blog and communities. That's right: Just go away.

Seriously, you get the most cracked viewpoints from people who add you as a friend on LJ because you helped them with a computer problem or a bit of CSS they struggled with or whatever. You can't discuss those very topics with them in their personal journals, not even when they invariably bring up those topics first, because:

By virtue of the fact that you helped them out in the past, you almost automatically know more about the subject than they do
The fact that you almost automatically know more about it than they do guarantees they will be offended if you respond in any fashion that equates with someone who knows more about it than they do
Their level of offendedness is likely to shoot through the roof from the first instant they feel offended because they know you know more, so they feel insecure, like you're talking down to them and/or taking an attitude
This "friendship" depends on you sitting back quietly as this easily offended person spins tale after tale of wrecking their computer or CSS with utter impunity, either through sheer neglect or ignorance, because one of the unspoken rules is that you must not offer advice unless asked; if asked, you must give advice gently and neutrally, as though you're once again helping the person out in a community
When the person invariably gets offended that you know more than they do, an un-friending is in order immediately and it's always undertaken with relish and delight
Once all of this has occurred, the other unspoken rule is that I'm supposed to crawl around on my virtual knees, begging for forgiveness for an offense I didn't commit.

Is that perfectly clear?

I'm sick of being used for what I know, friended for what I know, then thrown away at the slightest non-provocation that these so-called "friends" whip up because they are bitterly insecure and to top it off, either incapable or too lazy to learn. I deserve better. I helped these people to teach them, in part, how to help themselves, and the relationship, since there wasn't one to begin with, needs to stop right there.

So if I help you out in my other blog or in a community, don't add me as a friend; if you do, don't expect me to add you back. It might be great for you to add me on LJ to keep me, in a virtual sense, in your back pocket in case another problem arises that you think I can handle, or to add me simply because you're "grateful" that I helped you out, but most people don't want advice from anyone on their friends list, because they resent others for knowing more than they do, and I don't help out to make friends; I just help out to help out.

That said, this post is almost entirely dedicated to the last person to un-friend me because I knew more than they did. This person added me for my help in removing AOL from their computer years ago, and has been mildly entertaining to read ever since, in an "OMG, it's time to soak up the crazy" way. This person, after what I have been seeing for the last few days, gets offended at any advice offered out of that same sense of insecurity discussed above. This person had quite a bit to say about it in a mocking way to me on their journal last night before the inevitably dramatic un-friending of both my journals that followed. And I'm a let him finish, but first I gotta say...

Kanye and my latest un-friender are both full of shit.

in which a fairly major secret is made secret no more

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/11/in-which-a-fairly-major-secret-is-made-secret-no-more.html

Back in the old days, before Twitter exploded into the phenomenon that it is now, I got a message from Greg Grunberg. Greg plays Matt Parkman on Heroes (this information, which most of you don't need, is provided as a public service to the seven of you who do), and has been in every JJ Abrams project since JJ started making movies in the pre-old days.

Greg and I traded several messages about a bunch of different things, and then he sent me a private message that said something like, "JJ needs voice actors for Star Trek. Would you be interested in doing that?"

"Well, let me think about this for .00005 seconds," I thought. "I love Star Trek, I love voice acting, and ... why am I still thinking about this?!"

I replied in the affirmative as quickly as my fingers could get the thoughts out of my head.

Shortly after I sent my reply, I had a different series of thoughts that went something like this: "This is way too good to be true. This has to be a prank. Someone is fucking with me and I'm going to be the butt of a pretty mean joke." But then I had still another thought: "I'm not famous enough to be Punk'd, and Greg Grunberg doesn't seem like the kind of person who would do something mean, anyway." I was, as they say, cautiously optimistic.

About 24 hours later, JJ Abrams called me. It was an entertaining conversation; I couldn't believe he wanted me to do work on his film, and he couldn't believe that I wanted to do it. He asked me if I'd be interested in playing some Romulans, and I think I held my hand over the phone so he couldn't hear me squeal in delight before I calmly told him that, yes, I thought I could do that. I don't recall precisely why, but we agreed that it would be extra cool to keep it a secret until the heat death of the universe, an uncredited bit of awesome that only a handful of people in the world would know about ... unless we told them. (In fact, as far as I know, only a dozen people in the world knew about this until some meddling kids and their dog at Viacom found out about it this summer, and said we had to give me credit and stuff.)

I met JJ at an ADR stage a few days later, where he told me the entire plot of the movie (and, for the record, hearing JJ Freakin' Abrams tell you the plot of his Star Trek is even more awesome than you'd expect) and showed me some of the scenes that I'd be dubbing. I ended up providing voices for all the Romulans on Nero's ship, including the guy who tells him that "it's time" at the very beginning of the movie. (Yeah, how cool is that?)

I was distracted for the first 15 or 20 minutes before we started work, because I kept expecting someone to come out from behind a screen with a camera to laugh at me, but when I was given my dialog and recorded my first take, I knew that it was really happening.

I thought it would be really hard to keep my squee under control, but when I stood there in the darkened ADR stage, three pages of dialog in front of me, sitting in the soft glow of a single dim light clipped to a music stand, I was able to put my inner awkward superfan into check long enough to be a professional actor. I mean, I was working for JJ freakin' Abrams on Star frekin' Trek, so maybe I could rise to the occasion, you know?

We recorded dialog for about an hour or so, I guess, and when we were finished, JJ invited me to come with him over to the mixing stage, where he was going to watch a reel of the film.

Um. Okay. Yeah, I think I can do that. I texted Anne something like, "Probably never coming home again. I'm going to stay here with my new best friend JJ Abrams and watch as much of Star Trek as he'll let me."

So you know that scene where Kirk climbs out of the pod, runs away from the monster, and eventually meets Spock Prime in the cave? I got to watch that scene over and over, as they made the wind sound colder, then warmer, then colder and more fierce. I got to hear the roar of the monsters deepened, softened, made more terrifying, made louder, made softer. I got to hear the fire in Spock Prime's cave crackle more, then less, then more again, because the wind outside was now colder and more fierce, so it should probably be a warmer fire.

It was one of the coolest things in the world to watch, not just on screen, but in the room, too. The way JJ interacted with the other creative people in the room as they mixed the sound, the music, the foley, and everything else that we tend to just take for granted when we're in the theatre watching a movie was just fascinating. I don't know if all directors are like this, but he didn't let a single second go by like it was any less important than another.

Sooner than I'd would have liked, though, I began to feel like I was just hanging out, and even though I knew I could have stayed longer and watched more, I decided that it was best for me to leave before I overstayed my welcome.

JJ and I thanked each other, talked the way you do in Hollywood about maybe working together again in the future (ohpleaseohpleaseohplease oh please, Steve the Fruitbat, please make that happen) and I walked down the now-dark streets of the studio toward my car. I kept it under control until I drove out of the lot, at which time I bounced around in my chair like ... well, like a guy who loves Star Trek and just got to work on Star Trek would bounce around.

They digitally-altered my voice to sound like different people, but when I saw the movie, I could definitely tell that it was me underneath the effects. In fact, there's one moment near the end of the movie where one of the Romulans is yelling at Nero, and it's my plain old voice without any alterations. I bounced in my seat when I saw that in the theater just like ... well, you know.

aLp 306: Pediphiles

Back in '04, a few months before I started up this site, I was between jobs, and I seriously looked into being a pedicab driver. What could be better? Being outside, getting exercise, getting paid, meeting new folks, showing them around my city, risking likely death by taxi. I was also in shape then. I made a few calls but it didn't pan out.

So instead I started a comic strip. Now, 5 years later I'm stuck behind a computer screen all day, slaving away over a hot Photoshop and very much not in shape. I'm gonna go ahead and blame it on you guys.

Last week on Twitter I linked this video of an Alien and a few Predators playing Rock Band at some expo. It's really just as exciting as it sounds, but the costumes are pretty rad. Anyway, the guy who was in the awesome Alien suit playing the drums pinged me to let me know it was him, that he made that costume... and that he named it Abe.

Turns out he's everywhere, from sci-fi cons to official promos for the AvP:R DVD release in the UK, to this BBC London news segment on him and "Abe the Alien".

So go on and check out Gareth's site! The costume's a hell of a piece of work.

Lastly, it's been a while since I'd picked up new webcomics to read, and damn, there's some good ones I'm late to the party on. I wanna throw out some love to the hilarious Amazing Super Powers (my partners in Topatocrime), which I know you'll dig. Go check 'em out!

Blanc Pescador
I was told that this is a Basque region wine, and that it is Viura( a.k.a. Macabeo)
MMMMM... its lightly bubbly like Vino Verde, got a great crisp crab apple, and citrus nose with a touch of lanolyn and lavender.
the palate is very close, with a bit of melon and lemon rind.
I think this sells for about $11 a bottle and is just really fun!

Some thoughts.
"Every single person has at least one secret that would break your heart. If we could just remember this, I think there would be a lot more compassion and tolerance in the world."

-Post Secret

Current Mood: pensive