CritterKeeper

Curious City podcasts on downtown buildings with no visible doors or windows, followed by legends about sharks gettinginto Lake Michigan.

Pokemon Go seems to be all over the news lately. First people walking dangerously while distracted by playing the game. Then a group of crooks who were using the game to find people who were distracted and thus easy targets for robbery etc. Now, the Holocaust Memorial and Arlington National Cemetary are asking the game makers to please stop putting pokemon within their bounds, as playing video games there is rather disrespectful yet large numbers of people have been doing so.

I think Dan summed it up nicely. :-)

Tequila

You know, I don't think I've ever seen a movie or TV series for sale on a flash card.

I'm curious, did they say if they'd be stocking bluray discs? Compact discs? Or are they just getting out of physical media altogether?

I Know Now Why The Caged Bird Sings

Do Not Call list

Maybe Pandora is one of the first Immortals?

Funny, I was thinking this life of hers is an example of the flaws in the whole reset system. Pandora starts this life wasting it with stupid childish pranks, and by the time she's matured enough to realize she wants more out of life, that she wants to make the world a better place in some way, it's three-quarters over! When she resets, she'll lose all that wisdom of experience, and most likely go back to stupid childish pranks. And the worst part is, she's now old and wise enough to *realize* this, and to see it happening over and over again, never actually growing as a person because all her growth is discarded. Even Jerry seems like he wouldn't have bothered helping Diane if Old Jerry hadn't made an official vow that he was still bound by. We think of Jerry as the kindly, helpful Immortal he was in the cave, but now he's the jerk who wanted to encourage inappropriate sexist remarks.

AAWWWWW!!! Seriously, have you seen fennec foxes? Have you seen how adorable they are? From the name, I'd guess Fennec is a smaller version of Firefox, designed for smaller devices with fewer resources?

Another possibility I've seen raised is that Susan didn't really know her cousins at the time of the text messages, but either through coincidence or being inspired by Ellen's text to ask her mother, Susan and her mother got back in touch with her cousins and their family. I certainly had cousins growing up who lived far enough away we only saw them on holidays, so an invitation to join them for Christmas Day dinner and cartoons would certainly be reasonable.

fastidious solar

If you're ever in the Chicago area on the weekend before Halloween, I'll be happy to try to get you into Pretentious Drinking! A dozen or more tables full of different kinds of booze, and you can try a little taste of your choice of them.

Let's imagine there are also people on this board who haven't read that particular book, and explain what you're talking about to them....

"Pandora found herself already yearning for the fresh start of a new identity, but she was only to be a mere one hundred and fifty years of age. It was too soon to feel that way!" Hmm, I wonder if Immortals still get a cumulative effect over the years despite resetting on schedule? Could Pandora be descending into ennui earlier and earlier with each reset? The more times they reset, the more important stuff they have to pass on to their next incarnation. And perhaps they don't quite forget everything, merely almost everything? As the centuries go on, perhaps more carries over and even though more is forgotten, too, the overall effect is to leave them bored and insane earlier each time once they pass a certain tipping point? If resets were losing their effect, that might partially explain why she decided to do something different this time around, by *not* resetting.

You know, some days I really get tired of the hate showered indisciminantly on politicians. Or lawyers, or used car salesmen, or any other entire profession. The vast majority of people who run for an elected office do it because they honestly want to make the world, or at least their corner of it, a better place. They start out with something local, they see an injustice, and they step up and try to do something to fix it. Whether they succeed or not, they discover that they can indeed make a difference, or that inaction allows injustice to continue, and they carry on trying to make a difference. Sometimes they have to give up a promising career in some other field, or time with their families, or put up with insults from total strangers who know nothing about them but just assume they must be crooked. Not everyone agreed on what will make the world a better place. I know I'm not going to approve of all the changes every politician wants to make. Some of them want to make changes I would find horrific. But I don't automatically assume they're evil and trying to commit crimes, I assume that they see the world differently and that it might even be possible for them to change their minds someday about the things we disagree about. The current system makes it easy to make compromises for the sake of the greater good. Some of those compromises are moral ones, and some politicians end up on a slippery slope towards doing things they never intended, but I do not believe that is the overwhelming majority so many people seem to think it is. The term "career politician" is treated like it's one of the worst insults you can hurl, but why? Like any job, there are doubtless tricks of the trade, things you learn how to do better and better with more practice. Some people casually advocate a "throw 'em all out!" attitude. Why would we want our country to be run by a group of people none of whom have any experience at doing so? Seems to me the best way is to have some new members and some veterans to show them the ropes and provide continuity. Like, you know, any other business/profession/skill set. Are we really so cynical and pessimistic and even nihilistic that we'd each rather just assume everyone in the world is evil except ourselves?

I have a few fond memories of ComicCon. A bunch of us from a particular fandom got together in 2001 to go as a group. Now, most of the best memories related more to the fact that the show in question was produced in San Diego, and what was originally a little pre-con set tour slowly expanded to include seeing sets, props, and scripts not yet aired; meeting the entire cast and crew for a few minutes; hanging out in the show's mad scientist's lab; getting to see part of an episode filming; and finally being asked to join everyone for a good hour at Craft Services for some quite yummy food and conversation with cast and crew. ComicCon itself played host to our show's autograph line expanding from one to four hours and snaking through half the exhibit hall, getting to meet the writer of many of my favorite episodes and getting one of my scripts signed with what he said was his first autograph, and an excellent Q&A panel with, again, the show's entire cast and much of its important crew. That said, in 2001 ComicCon was big. I'd been to GenCon many times in Milwaukee, so it wasn't completely new to me, but it did seem like things were too far apart and too long a line for everything, too big a crowd trying to get in to top panels. I only enjoyed it because I didn't come in with any specific expectations beyond the one show. I probably spent more time in the dealers' room than at panels, and enjoyed doing so. After fifteen years further growth, it sounds like ComicCon has gotten far, far too big, and likely disappoints far too many people who had their hearts set on particular events which they couldn't get into. Right now, I think it would be great to go to Dragon*Con, which sounds like it's getting close to being too big but isn't there yet. I kinda feel pressure to go see it soon, before it does cross that threshhold, but so far trying to get a hotel room and/or roommates, tickets, etc. and get the right time off has not all come together at once. Maybe the proverbial next year?

Just about everything with alcohol in it tastes nasty to me, always has. It would be a great scam if it weren't true, because half the time when I tell people about this, they immediately recommend something which they claim tastes great and which you can't taste the alcohol in at all; many go so far as to order whatever it is and wait for me to drink it and declare them right. Instead, I end up taking a little sip and then making a horrible grimace. Luckily, I seem to be able to have a good time without artificial mood alterations. :-)

Seems like any place people go to get away from one or more seasons, will make them pay dearly. Move where there's no real winter, and you swelter in summer far longer and hotter. Go where it never breaks 85°F, and you get mountains of snow and/or bitter cold. Go to Seattle to avoid both real winter and real summer, and you get dull depressing drizzles. Go to San Diego, where the weather is darn near perfect (as long as no one's screwing with the boundaries of science), and you get fires and earthquakes.

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[Note that I started this post a while ago, but work interrupted, so some of it is ninja'd by now] Self-reliant, then, and that's bound to give a girl at least some self-confidence. It might well have been her mom who wanted Susan to learn how to make her way without having to rely on men. I'm curious now which side of the family the money comes from, or whether it was all made in this generation and if so by who. Any of the possibilities could be interesting! But telling the stories of all the main characters' parents in any detail would take up *way* too much time. D'oh! I forgot about that one. Some people really do like the name Tiffany, and some find Susan boring or otherwise objectionable. I could see her using Tiffany until she reached that age when so many kids experiment with creating their own identity by changing what name or nickname they go by. If they were adopted fairly young, he's probably a childhood friend to both of them. And to a certain age range, Barbie is cool! She represents the limitless possibilities of being a grown-up. Excuse me? When did I ever say anything like that? I was speculating about several possibilities, and never did I say or imply that any of it was pathognomonic for abuse. It is a warning sign which is often overlooked, or even used as an excuse for the abuser and to shift blame to the victim. ("Poor guy didn't stand a chance against that little....") It's as reasonable a possibility to raise as anything else we've been speculating about, and I don't appreciate being accused of "reducing living people to just victims" for even daring to mention the existence of such phenomena! That was me, not scotty, that you quoted there, and it depends on your family's budget and what sort of con it is. That looked like a large media con, and such events can charge well over a hundred dollars for a weekend badge. A regular weekend badge at San Diego ComicCon was $245 this year, if you could get one. Chicago TARDIS has General Memberships for $90, Priority for $150, and Reserved for $200, with varying levels of access and goodies for each. Food and drink also tend to be expensive at big cons, just like any other big event, as well as parking if you drive there. Many of the fan-run, written-word-oriented cons around here, on the other hand, charge from $45 to $60 per weekend, and that includes a ConSuite with free snacks and beverages, and almost always free parking and much cheaper room rates for those traveling to attend. For some families, $60 would be too much to spend on a frivolous weekend; for others, $245 (or $490) wouldn't bother them a bit. I'm guessing Susan and her mother are in the second category, and while I don't know for sure where Sarah lands, I'm betting she would have had to save up allowance or use up her full birthday and/or Christmas allotment to attend a large media con.

The best rant against creative writing classes, and how they stifle creativity and lead to dull cookie-cutter stories and hack writers, was the one Jim Butcher gave at DucKon a few years ago. It was his opinion for years, until one day he decided to show his writing professor he was right....he would follow every one of her stupid rules, fill out every one of her stupid charts, plot things out ahead just the way she said, and then show her how bad the result was. The result was The Dresden Files. If anyone grew up spoiled, it was Susan. She and her mother clearly have a ton of money, and spend it on sometimes extravagant creature comforts, a trip to France, at least one convention (and it wouldn't surprise me if she bought Sarah's badge too), pretty much whatever they want can be theirs. Diane, on the other hand, seems like she hasn't had it nearly that good, at least materially. It seems unlikely she'd develop the strategy of manipulating boys into giving her what she wants if she could just buy what she wanted on her own. Her sister shares an apartment with three other people, another sign they're not exactly rich enough for her to casually get her own place while in college. Emotionally, Susan grew up with a mother who clearly cared about her and would fight for her (such as getting the school to let her go to France early), and she's mentioned cousins, but she had no siblings and, of course, no father. Her mother taught her to be self-confident and to stand up for what she thinks is right, but not many of the social graces that help make people want to stand with her or be around her. Other than knowing Diane has an adoptive sister she considers her genuine sister and cares strongly about, we have no idea about her background. Did they grow up in foster homes, or were they adopted together while still young? Were they raised with other siblings? If so, were their parents others' foster, adoptive, and/or birth parents? Were they all a big happy family, or was there something important missing, a need Diane tried to fill by her manipulations of boys and her Queen Bee behavior at school? Was there anything worse than just something missing? Inappropriately sexy dress and behaviors can be one sign of past sexual abuse; so can a difficulty forming genuine emotional attachments with others (eg a manipulative male abuser could lead to her not trusting boys and not seeing them as genuine people to have relationships with, but as something to be manipulated in return). It could be both -- she could have had an abusive foster home, and then been adopted into a wonderful loving family. We just don't know at this point. And I'd better stop here, before I end up with too strong a head-canon....

As I mentioned in another thread, we watched the original Ghostbusters, inspired by the upcoming reboot. It held up fairly well, although the effects were noticably bad by today's standards in several spots, there was some sexist stuff they couldn't get away with today, and it was quite jarring how much smoking there was. The next day we went to see Finding Dory, which was great! The new character Hank was amazing to watch, and I'll say no more so I won't spoil it for others who have yet to watch it. The obligatory Pixar short beforehand, "Piper," was wonderfully lifelike. Planning on getting Amazon Prime, which is apparently where the Doctor Who episodes Netflix used to have escaped to, so that may be next on my list. Or maybe I'll just read a book instead. ;-)

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