Hurry up and wait
Back to the doctor again today, where they told me that I’d need another pair of CT scans – with and without contrast dye. On the other hand, the reason they want them is that the kidney surgeon has concluded that it’s a simple cyst, and if it has no cancerous tissue, he doesn’t think it should come out. It will need twice-yearly monitoring, but nothing more.
So, everyone please cross your fingers, or send good vibes, or do whatever else you do to encourage the Fates. The surgeon feels there’s a 40% chance it’s a harmless cyst, and a 60% it will have to come out. I’d like to fall in the 40. He does about fifty of these a year, so we’ll guess he knows what he’s doing.
Starr drilled him mercilessly on every technical detail. He commented, “You’ve done your homework. Want a job?” I said, “Y’all have already given her one,” and she confessed to being an oncology nurse with the same hospital chain.
And oh yeah, just because there’s not enough pain in our lives, we gave all three cats individual baths tonight.
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I linked this in Facebook, but I’m reposting the link here because Starr saw me watching the new episode and asked to see the whole series. Freeman’s Mind follows a playthrough of the legendary “Half-Life” videogame, with a narration track added to the silent main character. The narration is smart-assed, sarcastic, and slightly deranged; Starr laughed through the 15 episodes so far completed. Recommended. (I’d have embedded it, but that’s disabled for some reason.)
Ahhwoooooo!
Here’s my little bit of happy for the evening, and it goes out to all my lichen lycan friends out there. It’s a WoW video, yes, but I suspect it works pretty well even if one’s not steeped in the lore of Azeroth.
Corporate Shenanigans
Seems that I have two VHS copies of the “Gentleman’s Agreement” Shadowrun movie. I found the better of the two, but I still played with the brightness settings a bit in iMovie to make Jerry’s Toaster work show up better. The initial team meetup scene remains dark as heck, though.
This is Part One…
You can’t make stir-fry without breaking a few chickens
Catchup gaming session last night to get back on our two-week schedule. I had the first episode of the new adventure plotted out, so of course we spent the evening copying characters to the new sheets and spending karma and nuyen. Still, the socializing was good as always, so it wasn’t a wasted evening. Must remember to give fixitup and/or ptownhiker ‘gamemaster bribery’ karma for bringing the Oreos.
The new sheets went over pretty well. I still have to fix the cyberdeck section before I’m at the 1.0 version, but since none of the players physically present are deckers, I can finish that before I send a copy to Amy. Celia came over with her guy Rip to get character descriptions from folks; she wants to do portraits of our runners to get back into her art groove. Looks like she’ll start with Jesse and unit_9. She may play some NPCs for me or do ‘special guest star’ duties when we’re missing a player.
Inspired by a comment of rattrap‘s, I ran the old “Gentleman’s Agreement” Shadowrun short film to close the evening. People were exclaming, “That’s Kim Green! That’s James Dunson!” The Video Toaster CGI received compliments as well. Sadly, the copy I showed is overly dark and heavily compressed; if I can find a cleaner one, and no one involved in the project objects, I’ll try to put it up on YouTube.
We still need a team name for this group. Maybe we can come up with one in the next two weeks.
For I Toss And Turn, Can’t Sleep At Night
Oh, wow. Bet you haven’t heard 1981’s “Tainted Love” covered in quite this manner…
I’m hitting iTunes – if this guy has an album, I want it. If only he’d cover “Girls On Film”…
Starfleet Vice – 1990
The RoVaCon 15 Starfleet Vice video, as threatened promised…
So, I’ll explain a little of what’s going on. I’m in the wheelchair because I’d been in a life-threatening car accident only weeks ago, but I was too stubborn to miss the con. Heather and Valerie are dressed in costumes from the anime Dirty Pair. Mike Allen represented KODRA, a ruthless Klingon-Orion terrorist organistion out to rule the Alpha Quadrant; while Markus… well, he had a lab coat, so we worked that in. And of course, Tom, Mike, and Beth were solely there to support our blatant swipe of Monty Python material.
I don’t remember the name of the dude working the camera… but he really liked the anime costumes.
I’ve got pictures, candy…
Since today is of course, the Ides of March, I had to find a proper Vehicle for my thoughts on the day…
I once saw a version of this set entirely to classic NASA footage. Quite cool, but I can’t locate a copy of that on the Web.
About to head out into the rain to procure dinner fixins and blades for my razor. I can get quite furry on weekends where no social events are involved.
Time-shifting change
For those of us at work who can’t have streaming video running, is anyone on my flist ‘taping’ the inauguration?
No kidding this time
Here are some people with some advice about what you – yes, you – should be doing with your time this week, and the beginning of next month, if you’re an adult American.
You may have heard of some of these people. Some of the folks on my friends list may disagree with almost every word that comes out of their mouths. Ironically enough, that’s an excellent justification for doing exactly what the people on this video want you to do.
There’s some NSFW language, but if you can, watch this. Then, really: do what they say. We’ll all thank you.
Are You Experienced?
While installing OS X Leopard on a customer’s computer, we chatted about fine-scale modeling, digital video production, and modern professional typesetting. Suddenly, it struck me: I’m not making this stuff up, I actually can speak with some authority on these topics, cause I’ve done them, and made plenty of mistakes while I was at it!
Some facets of my life might have been easier had I been able to take a more direct path to where I am now. Thinking about that can sometimes disgruntle me a bit. It’s cheering to be reminded of how much I’ve managed to learn, and how much fun I’ve had on the way. When I look back to consider what I’ve actually done with my life, the answer turns out to be more than I thought at first glance; and that somehow makes me look forward to the future even more.
Nice when a bit of unexpected perspective is not bitter, but a treat!
