worldmegan

Today I got this email entitled “WordPress.com Golden Ticket”.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away you entered your email address on http://wordpress.com/ to get a blog.

We’re now inviting small groups to use WordPress.com and your email address was selected today!

Visit this address to get started:
http://wordpress.com/invite/bcceb26b6e16c93a477771dfc3dd1b5d

While you’re on a string of good luck it might be a good day to buy a lottery ticket.

Cheers,
The WordPress.com Team

So… where can I pick up a lottery ticket?

This is the most recent entry in a weblog called ‘tiny nibbles’, written by a woman whose name is Violet Blue. She’s a sex writer and adult media reviewer, among other utterly cool things (repeat after me: machine artist). She’s an incredible blogger and a fascinating person. That said, if you’re in a place where people are easily offended, or if you yourself have a problem gaining objective learning from lifestyles you aren’t personally familiar with, you might want to reconsider clicking on the link I’m going to give you. Then again, you might want to take another look at yourself and your workplace, and click anyway.

“We need more human witnesses. And please don’t underestimate how much we need them to blog and document their experiences. This is not Fox or CNN; this is us, as people. We need to be the media more than ever. If you have a blog, even if it’s just about knitting, don’t stop blogging. And don’t ever be afraid to blog about your aunt dying on your knitting blog; technology is giving us back our capacity to be more human than ever.”

I sat down to read a perfectly normal blog entry and realized that if you really listen closely, you can get incredible insight from what she’s saying. Maybe that’s what makes the best writers. Somewhere in the middle, she hits you in the head with an existential two-by-four, just to make sure you’re paying attention. And then she goes back to feeding you revelatory tidbits, tiny pieces. Tiny nibbles, even.

Her entry is largely about the Webzine 2005 convention, but she says a lot of other things, too. Violet’s entry can be found here. If you don’t want to read it at work, I understand. But go home and read it later. (And hell, I’m posting it after hours. Plenty of time before bed.)

HA!! That was great! Dude, you have to listen to this, it is excellent. I just listened to a fabulous radio story called ‘The Man in the Moon’ and it was totally worth the time, wonderful, wonderful! What do you call these things, dramatizations? Ooh, gurgle!

Take a look at Spaceship Radio and subscribe to the feed. I’m going to go download the older casts, I don’t have the patience to wait for a new one!

!!

It’s not really the end of the actual week, the calendar week, but it’s the end of a week I’ve been counting as going too quickly. My Aunt Cheryl got in last Thursday, and we had all kinds of fun before it was suddenly Wednesday and, what? Thursday’s tomorrow? So she headed off to the airport again this morning and I guess I’m a little grumpy. Reasonably so, I think. But happier and a better person for having been able to visit with her. There are pictures from her visit in my Flickr stream, but Flickr’s having a well-deserved massage at the moment so you’re going to have to check back for them later. ;}

This morning I found a really interesting article about people who blog for theraputic purposes – who blog for many other reasons, even, but admit how theraputic keeping a blog actually is. It’s very different when you’re talking to real people, instead of to yourself in a secret book no one sees. And this is particularly pertinent to me because my thought process works most efficiently when I am talking. I discover a lot of things about myself the very moment I say them out loud (or type them to you here). This article, for what it’s worth, is at eMarketer, of all places.

In other news, I have exactly thirty-nine pieces of ‘urgent’-marked Welsh spam in my trash folder. What. The. Heck. They are all copies of the same two messages regarding Welsh language learning. One version is in English, but the other is actually in Welsh.

What alternate universe am I currently inhabiting?

Update: Now I have a nice even forty of them. Hmm.

Update Again: I know you are all terribly, terribly interested in the spam I’m getting, but… I just got forty-five more. Forty-five MORE!

Three More Updates Than You Really Needed: Flickr is back from the relaxy, so you can see some of my pictures from this last week. ;}

Should I have another Coke?

I think yes.

I haven’t been playing a lot of games lately. I was Dungeon & Dragonning for awhile, but with my priority list the way it is, that managed to slip off my radar. I’ve been missing it – missing something – but there are a handful of other things that are just too important to me to replace.

So last night, Marty was testing a new game on me. It’s a game he’s putting together in d20 format to play with a few of our friends, but I knew my brain wasn’t up to d20 tonight. So he started talking it out to me.

I don’t want to give it away by typing out details. But do you know, it was like one of the old text-based games – Hitchhiker’s Guide, or even Dragonrealms. Dragonrealms still uses that format, and it’s a perfectly good format. The only problem with those games, really, is that the computer will only accept certain phrases as actions, so unless you know the set really well, you have to cast about for them every time you want to do something. And furthermore, this wasn’t just a pre-planned scenario – he was tweaking it as he went along, depending on what I decided to do.

It was like playing chess. It was incredible.

We got through one obstacle and, rather pleased with myself, I wanted to keep going – but at that point it was already pushing 1:00am and my thought process was getting fuzzy. Then he gave me a hint, and that was it – no hints. I don’t want to play if you have to give me hints. Screw that! :P

But I have to do this again. It’s too unbelievably fun and interesting to forget about. It takes everything I adore about D&D and condenses it into one game, without the math, without the rules. It’s just the story, and two people trying to trip each other up! Excellent!

Besides which, he’s very good at it. So nifty.

I know, I know. But I’m going to do another radio.blog first, because I just made a new shower cd and I need to get in the shower. My brain’s workin’ funny. Check these out – click here or on the radio.blog link on the bottom left to listen.

• Technologic: I haven’t heard any Daft Punk at all, except for this song. You’ll remember it from iPod commercials past.

• Sixteen Military Wives: By the inimitable Decemberists. Guys, you haven’t heard anything till you’ve heard this band.

• Satan Is My Motor: Cake – I only discovered this recently. How did I miss this song?

• Ecstasy: D’you guys remember Rusted Root?? I just started listening to them again and I just adore them, I can’t get enough. They’re from Pittsburgh, even. (I think?)

• The Mariner’s Revenge Song: Also the Decemberists. Probably the best song on here. Pay attention.

• Carbon Monoxide: From Cake’s latest album. Someone called this album pure liquid prozac. Was it Wil Wheaton, or did I make that up?

• Twisted: I kind of think Joni Mitchell is neat, but haven’t heard a lot of her stuff. Todd made some of us listen to this song and every time I listen, it gets truer… (uh oh…)

• The Bagman’s Gambit: Decemberists. You have to really listen to this one. It gets better every time you listen.

• The Distance: This was my first Cake song ever. I heard it in Marty’s dorm room in college.

And really, isn’t a radio.blog post sort of exactly the same as an A/V post? Should I make them the same? Are they kind of different? Does anyone have thoughts on this, or am I on my own?

You know, it feels like autumn out there.

Gives me shivers. Makes me happy.

Shower time.

Some of you might have noticed already that Flickr isn’t showing my photos at the top of my blog – it’s showing some entirely different set instead! I’m not sure what’s going on but I’m going to look into it, so sit tight. I’m not honestly sure what could appear up there while I’m fiddling… ha!

Update: Hmm, fixed it. That was weird. And now I can have it show only photos with the ‘worldmegannet’ tag, that’s kind of nice. Ah, control… :-D

I won.

News at 11! Hee!

Update: Okay, news in a couple of days. Dude, I am zonked. If you need details, ask me. Otherwise, you’ll read it here as soon as I have the braincells to donate. :-D

Update Again: Okay, news in a couple of weeks? I’m catching up, I’m catching up! Soon!

We took the monorail this afternoon to eat at Kimonos, a sushi restaurant in the Swan Hotel. Here’s one of the little videos I shot out the window.

At Emii’s suggestion I took a look at inderdictor’s LiveJournal blog to see how New Orleans was shaping up. What I found completely blew me away… and I haven’t even finished reading yet.

Guys… we live our sheltered little lives and we barely pay attention to what’s going on elsewhere. This disaster and that disaster, we hear it on the news, we feel bad, we say we’d like to do something. But we aren’t really doing anything. We can’t actually do anything – we can send money, we can pray. We can uproot ourselves and go move supply crates, but I bet we’d have to walk in from the city limits. And who of us has that option, with the resources we have? Not many, and not enough.

I’ve been preoccupied the last few days, and I’ll most likely be preoccupied for the next few, too. I took a look at the Red Cross’s run-down regarding Katrina. They’re still asking for money and volunteers, and that’s what we should give them if at all possible. I know that many of us have no way to give either – but we can spread the word, and we can give our time to make sure everyone who can help will do their damnedest.

I suppose what I’m feeling is ‘distraught’, and I know I’m not isolated in that respect. I just hadn’t had a chance to process this information until now, and it seems so late to have done so! I have wonky Disney music drifting in from the laser show across the lake and it isn’t doing anything for my distraught.

We’ll do whatever we can, right?

Here’s a nice BBC News link that Andrew forwarded on about the Festival, in case ya’ll are interested. :}

Time to go over some music, get dressed, and get my butt downstairs to rehearse.

Andrew brought it to my attention that he’s getting 500 Server Errors up when he loads this site, and since it looks fine from here, I’m going to try a test post to see what happens. I want to ask “Is anyone else having this problem?” but that would be silly, ‘cause if you are, you’re not seein’ it. :P

So far, so good! I scouted out the Convention Center and found lots of friendly people who helped me. Then I found myself something to eat in a cafeteria near the main lobby. I don’t think I’m going to go back there again. The food is cheaper, but it’s scary food. By which I mean, it scares me. (Maybe I’ll try something else. Vote the pizza down if you get the chance.) The urge to buy a carton of Ben & Jerry’s was overwhelming but I resisted. And I’m fed now, in any case.

I took a bunch more pictures, though I don’t expect I’ll upload them until later tonight. I believe that when Mom and Grandma get here we’ll go to dinner, which I sorely want and desperately need. No real nutrients in microwave cardboard pizza, maybe? But I’m not sure where to go. I’d really like to go to the Swan Hotel and the sushi restaurant there, but I don’t know how far it is from the Contemporary. I need to find a map; I bet they have them in the lobby. Maybe I’ll go look after I finish this post.

I found myself with a little bit of waiting to do and I decided to type ‘Welsh pirate’ into Google. Dude, Welsh pirates!! I figured I’d find a couple listings, that maybe there was ONE Welsh pirate I could read about. This article says that some people are of the opinion that almost half the pirates in the 17th century had some Welsh heritage. I have struck gold! Welsh pirates!! (And me with my pirate hat along!)

I actually can’t seem to stop obsessing over this, and I’m a little upset that Amazon doesn’t carry this book by T.D. Breverton. Maybe I will keep looking. It looks… so…. neat!!

In any case, that’s that. I’m going to go see if I can find a map that tells me how far the Swan Hotel is from here. Wish me luck!

The wonderful Welsh folks in the vicinity of Youngstown have sponsored me to attend the North American Festival of Wales and compete in their eisteddfod. I’m barely settled in, and I haven’t had the chance to explore yet, but I thought it best to check in and let everyone know what’s going on!

The Festival is being held in Orlando this year. I’m staying at the Disneyworld Contemporary Resort, which is headquarters for the Festival and apparently has a huge convention center (which I have yet to see). I’m going to bathe and dress, and head down there to see what’s what. I’m hoping to meet a lot of nice new people, and since historically all the Welsh people I meet are fantastically friendly, I don’t think I’m going to have any problems.

It took awhile for my luggage to show up last night. I used Disney’s Magical Express to get myself here from the airport, and despite me having completely forgotten to properly tag my luggage, it all went smoothly. I couldn’t believe it – I was sure I’d screwed it up. Whew!

The flight was incredibly relaxing, considering that my last few plane trips were to the West coast. It was a short, sweet, two-hour flight. I read Transmetropolitan and played Super Mario Brothers the whole time. It was great.

I’m fairly certain at this point that I’m no longer in the real world – I suppose Disneyworld ought to do that to you. There were fireworks and light displays last night. I could see and hear them quite clearly from my room, and was told that they happen every night. I wonder if it’s Disney’s anniversary celebration that’s the cause, or if those are regular occurances ‘round here?

I took a lot of pictures, and you can check out the first set here.

Our first stop on the bus before the Contemporary was the French Quarter – gave me chills, but it was pretty. We keep hearing about the state of New Orleans and surrounding areas, and this morning the newspaper headline sitting outside my door said “Death toll likely in thousands.” The weather last night was grey and wet, and the weather this morning was blue and bright and beautiful. We had a rainstorm that pulled out all the stops without hiding the sun for several minutes, and it was fabulous. I have a great view of the lake from my room.

Missy and Marty took me to the airport for my flight yesterday. We had a wildly cool lunch at Nahla’s in New Castle and a really nice drive to Pittsburgh. It was so nice getting to spend a few extra hours with them before I left.

Small children keep rampaging past my door. They go, clomp clomp giggle clomp giggle shriek clomp. I am quite entertained by this.

All right, it’s shower time. Then I’ll put on appropriate clothing and go galavanting off into the unknown (and probably pick up a program booklet and meet a few people). This is a good plan.

Have a “Magical” Day! Heehee!