50 Books

1. Shadow of the Flame. DragonLance Taladas trilogy volume 3. By Chris Pierson
2. Iron Fist. Star Wars X-Wing series volume 6 by Aaron Allston.
3. CSI:NY Deluge by Stuart M. Kaminsky
4. Everything's Eventual by Stephen King
5. Lisey's Story by Stephen King.
6. Night of the Long Shadows: Eberron Inquisitives series vol 2 by Paul Crilley
7. The Left Hand of Death: Eberron The LanternLight Files vol. 1 by Parker DeWolf
8. Dragons of the Highlord Skies: DragonLance. The lost Chronicles vol. 2 by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman.
9. The Rebellion: DragonLance. The Stonetellers vol.1 by Jean Rabe.
10. Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
11. Invisible Darkness by Stephen Williams
12. Legacy of Wolves: Eberron. The Inquisitives vol 3 by Marsheila Rockwell
13. Storm Dragon: Eberron. The Draconic Prophecies vol 1. by James Wyatt
14. The Sex Slave Murders by R. Barri Flowers
15. Solo Command. Star Wars. X-Wing vol. 7 by Aaron Allston
16. Isard's Revenge. Star Wars. X-Wing vol. 8 by Michael A Stackpole
17. Starfighters of Adumar. Star Wars. X-Wing vol. 9 by Aaron Allston
18. Outbound Flight. Star Wars. By Timothy Zahn
19. Darth Bane: Path of Destruction. Star Wars. by Drew Karpyshyn
20. Destiny. DragonLance Elven Exiles series vol 3. by Paul B. Thompson and Tonya C. Cook.
21. The Orc King. Forgotten Realms. Transitions vol.1 by R.A. Salvatore.
22. Hush Little Babies by Don Davis
23. True Colors. Star Wars. Republic Commando vol 3. by Karen Travis
24. The Secret of Pax Tharkas. Dragonlance. Dwarf Home series vol 1. by Douglas Niles
25. Protecting Palanthas. DragonLance. The Champions vol. 4 by Douglas W. Clark
26. The Black Talon. DragonLance. Ogre Titans vol.1 by Richard Knaak
27. Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
28. Forever Odd by Dean Koontz
29. Brother Odd by Dean Koontz

Dear annoying Supernatural fangirl/woman/person/toaster/thing on one of the Pit's forums,

Don't say that you find the squee!ful fangirls there's no other way to describe 'em in the fandom stupid and annoying when you are one.  You treat Dean Winchester like Jesus---in your eyes, he has no faults.  According to you, everything he has ever done and every decision he has ever made is selfless and for the greater good or some crap like that, even though Sam said himself that Dean's deal that left him with a year to live in exchange for bringing Sam back from the dead was selfish.  Dean wanted a way out of life because he's a self-loathing jerk.  Yes, he has done some good things and he's saved a lot of people, but he's not perfect at all.  Perfect-looking?  Maybe.  But not perfect emotionally and/or mentally.  The guy has more mental issues than...I don't even know, so please don't treat him as a perfect martyr and then poo-poo other people for doing so.  If you say he's perfect because he was chosen by the angels, remember that the angels are assholes.  Their view of "righteous" seems to be "completely obedient," and that's how Dean acted toward his dad.  I like Dean, though; I just don't like how you've airbrushed who he is.

You're clearly in denial about how shallow and warped your views of the character is, and you're trying to keep yourself grouped with the "intelligent" fans---the ones who at least like to analyze things and see that the characters have issues and flaws---you're definitely not one of them, and I can't stand to read your comments because of this.

Broader point:  Properly written characters, especially your favorites, aren't perfect.  They're not gonna be perfect because you love them; some people like these characters because they have flaws.  So don't turn the jerks into Christ-figures and preach to us about their wonderfulness or whatever; the rest of us like our jerks the way they are. 

ETA:  This relates to fanfic in that these fans let this show in their fic and it's unbelievably irritating.

I have bottled the cider made from the apples process on our harvest day. Longest fermentation I have ever left I think and it was still glooping very slowly. (Edit: it went in the fermenter on May 9th!) It was down to 1005 so feel safe to bottle it. Final alcohol roughly 8%, so not a light quaffer! It has depth of flavour that apple juice cider doesn't get. You can taste real apple, core and all in the background. I look forward to it after some bottle conditioning. I am also *very* keen to taste the stuff we left with Weaver_of_druart as it tasted spectacular as apple juice, which mine didn't so much. Must organise this somehow if they haven't drunk it all yet. 8->

Long time watcher, first time poster. Most of these pictures are from the Avondale, Arizona Savers.



( Let the witch on a unicorn escort you inside the cut )

Last Sunday afternoon, I treated myself to the ABC Classic FM free concert, held in the Sir Stanley Burbury Theatre, at the Uni.. It's not often that these concerts come to Hobart; I've always managed to miss them in the past. Christopher Lawrence introduced the Kingfisher Trio (Duncan Gifford - piano, Susan Collins - violin, Sue-Ellen Paulsen - cello) performing Mozart’s Divertimento in B flat, K254, and Schumann’s Piano Trio No 3 in G minor, Op 110. During the first movement of the Mozart piece (the allegro) the piano seemed rather flat, as 'though the sound could only lift about three feet above the instrument. I'm certain that the pianist was playing well—p'raps the piano had not warmed up on such a cold day, or, indeed, my ear-drums had not warmed after the drive to the venue. Both ladies on strings played magnificently, & the piano's sound slowly unfurled its petals during the adagio, to be in full blossom, throughout the auditorium, by the end of the movement.

Listening to recorded music, or the radio, as I generally do, it is so easy to forget the joys of a live performance—feeling the music enfold about one's self, observing the musicians, *their* involvement in the music, their facial expressions & body language, & noticing the reactions of others within the audience.

On Thursday night, ABC Classic FM broadcast Verdi's Requiem—a fine performance which took me back a number of years to the night that the wonderfully musical kirieldp took me to Llewellyn Hall, at the Australian National University, Canberra, to experience this same piece.

Two battalions (mixed choirs) were deployed as Regimental artillery, arrayed behind a large orchestra, which provided a rolling barrage. The soprano, alto, tenor, & bass Siege Guns were positioned at the Front, & archangelic brass sniped, periodically, from strategic corners of the cavernous bunker. Enthroned upon a cloud, we were thrilled: the roof echoed, trembled, & lifted as a troop of howling Valkyries & the Wild Hunt met in a great turbulence & moil.

A grand night out, for one & all!

Today, life is beautiful, for so many reasons. Tell me about them.

Hi guys,

I'll be in Israel until early Tuesday morning. Since I've been in town, I've been trying to find a translation of John Scalzi's book, Old Man's War (translated into Milchemet HaAdam HaZaken back in 2007 or so). Aside from randomly sticking my head into every Steimatsky's that I walk past, can anyone suggest other shops that might be helpful?

(One place offered to order it for me, but I won't be around for that long...)

Thanks!!

I've asked about this topic before and have done loads of research. But before I can go on in my story, I need to ask a couple of more questions. Searched: pretty much everything having to do with adoption, international family adoption, putative paternal rights, Toronto Ministry of Youth and Children Services, laws about child abandonment and custody in Ontario, and much more.

Setting: January 2003, Toronto, Ontario
Background: 12 year-old boy and his guardian get into a car accident. The guardian dies. The previously missing father shows up at the scene completely coincidentally. Due to certain circumstances, he realizes that the boy must be his son. The mother is missing and presumed dead and he had no idea that she was pregnant when she went missing. It's probably not the best idea, but the father takes the son with him and just drives off, trying to work through the situation in his head. They get stuck in a blizzard about two and a half hours north of Toronto and the father intends to return with the boy the next day.

I know that the father shouldn't have left, etc. But he has the power to pretty much do what he wants. He does plan on returning the boy. What I want to know is this: Say the father and boy show up at the police station (by this time the father has already called a lawyer and learned who was in charge with dealing with the accident). Would the Ministry of Children and Youth Services get involved? IIRC, in the states usually a case worker from Social Services is called. But I can't find that out exactly in Canada. Also, if the father requests to keep the son with him while the accident is being investigated, would he be allowed to do so? At the moment, he has no proof that the boy is his son. The father is not a citizen -- would that affect matters any? How long would the boy have to stay in the care of a foster family/in a home? Until the father proved that he was the father? Or longer? It's going to be clear pretty soon that the mother is completely out of the picture.

Also, the father eventually wants to get full custody of his son. The mother has essentially abandoned the boy and because he's the father, I don't believe it would be too hard for him to convince a judge to award him full custody. But: the father was living in London, about to move to New York and the boy has lived in Canada his entire life (but is a US citizen). What country would be the most likely setting for the custody hearing? Seeing as how the boy is a US citizen, would the father have any trouble crossing the boarder if he doesn't have custody yet? Would the police let him leave with the boy if he didn't have an official custody order? Because it's a car accident, I don't think that the police will have too much to investigate. But would they still be involved in the search for the mother and figuring out the details of the guardian's estate?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

How long would the proceeding take? I know that adoptions can take months - or even years - but because this isn't really a true adoption, I'm a bit confused

lol.

i made mac and cheese from;

1box rigatoni pasta
2 cans cheese soup
1 cheese packet from tuna helper
1 bag of baby lima beans

smiple cook pasta in box to desired firmness
retain about 2 cups water add cheesees and lima beans place piece or two cooked sausage on top nom down
i put as a last addition to mine a few table spoons mild taco sauce if i werent preggy it would have been some tabasco habbinero but i am

1 package grilled smoked sausage

I just did the math and realized that there are only 5 paychecks until the wedding. Wow wow wow!

Our date is Sept. 26. We have done the save the dates, reserved the reception hall, done our marriage class with the church (and reserved the church), bought my wedding dress and our wedding rings (from Titanium Knights on Etsy -- recommended by someone else in this community and I am very happy with them! :).

Left to do in the (somewhat immediate future):

• Wedding Web site (I'm a Web designer so I'm putting way more stock into this than I should)
• Invitations (We're going to design them like little newspapers -- we both work at a newspaper :)
• Developing a catering menu -- we're doing the cooking ourselves

Seems like a lot for such a short time! But I'm happy to have a short engagement and (hopefully) a simple wedding.

On the block that my house is part of, there is a squarish plot of land right in the middle that butts up against the back of all the houses, of which there are about 10. It belongs to one house in particular. There wasn't much there aside from a few trees and some underbrush against our fence; sometimes the owners' creepy kid would play back there and they used to keep a very loud, neglected dog in a pen, but that was a couple years back.

A couple of weeks ago, they got some big equipment back there and cleared it all out except for two trees against my fence, and I thought they were going to be building something back there. A playhouse for the kids or a jungle gym or shed or something. Oh no.

My neighbors have a four wheeler, and now the kids spend all day long going around and around that plot of land like retarded redneck hamsters. I am not exaggerating.

There are two levels of WTF here: Those kids are out there until the sun is completely down, which can be close to TEN O'CLOCK AT NIGHT. They're back there right now, and it's 8:55. You know how annoying it is when you're trying to nap or watch TV and someone decides to mow their lawn, but you know that at least it's temporary? Well, this isn't temporary, and it's loud enough that I can hear it clearly in my front room. I expect this is true for the whole block, since everyone's house butts up against that plot of land.

The second level of WTF is that in about a year or two, we're going to want to sell this house, and the market is shit enough without there being a fucking DIRT RALLY in my backyard.

Lacy's out of town right now, but when he gets back we're going to either go over there to talk to the owners or leave them a note. By all rights I could call the police and make a noise complaint, but I figure at least a note first is the polite thing to do. Not that they've given me or anyone else any thought and particularly deserve it.

Do any of you know if there's any sort of legal action that could be taken, here? Surely this is significantly lowering my property value. Right now I can barely stand it, I can't imagine anyone wanting to listen to that on purpose.

Now and then I post about the music industry; it being a long time interest and study of mine. Here's a closer look at how Amanda Palmer connected with fans to become successful

http://techdirt.com/articles/20090709/0208545494.shtml

JJJ, a very influential Australian radio station has created a listener-voted top 100 songs of all time. Nothing new there, I recall ZM doing the same thing 20 years ago in NZ. Given JJJ is Australian I'll allow a few Aussie songs in there, but nevertheless there are still some rather strange results so far.
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hottest100_alltime/countdown/cd_list.htm

Anyway, I was talking to the lovely jetspeaks about this and she mentioned how good friend Benno would be disappointed there is no Devo in the list. I remarked that I thought Devo would definitely make it into the top 100 alternative songs, at least in the USA.

Right.

Here and now, I am starting the "Top 100 alternative songs of All Time"

You get to suggest, vote, and comment.

At present, here are some of mine.

* Devo | Whip It

* The Pixies | Where Is My Mind?

* Depeche Mode | Personal Jesus

* Bauhaus | Bela Lugosi's Dead

* Sex Pistols | Anarchy in the UK

* Venom | Black Metal

* Slayer | Reign in Blood

* Captain Beefheart | ?

* The Cure | Lullaby

* Sigue Sigue Sputnik | Love Missile F1-11

* Massive Attack | Teardrop

* King Crimson | ?

* Nirvana | Smells Like Teen Spirit

* Dimmu Borgir | ?

* The Dammned | New Rose

* Throbbing Gristle | ?

* Skinny Puppy | ?

* Grandmaster Flash | White Lines

* Black Flag | ?





Care to add to the list?






listening to Cradle of Filth | Nymphetamine