tarigwaemir

Haste Street on the Feast of Ste. Julia Billiart

Those of you who don't follow gadget blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo as compulsively as I do probably are not aware of the new market for cheap low-end ultraportables created in the aftermath of the Asus Eee PC debut. Originally intended to be an easy-to-use (hence the triple "E" in its name) laptop for children, it quickly became the must-have toy for gadget addicts. I'm too lazy to dig up all the relevant links to describe the trajectory of the Eee PC's somewhat unexpected popularity, so I'll leave it to you to read through the blogs if you're really interested.

( Affordable ultraportables )

On Paper Cuts, A Brief Interview on Brief Interviews: David Foster Wallace fans might be interested to know that one of the actors from The Office (American version) has bought film rights to Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (Amazon) and has apparently already begun casting. (Trying to imagine Wallace's writing translated to a film medium is just mind-boggling.) Edit: IMDb entry indicates that it's coming out this year.

Via Reading Copy, an article in the Guardian, My uncle is not a slum landlord: Fiction is not autobiography. You know, after always hearing that creative writing adage to "write what you know", it's awfully reassuring to hear that you're not the only one making it all up as you go along. (Usual train of thought in my head while writing, "Hand-waving! I have no idea but let's pretend I do! Looking things up on Wikipedia counts as research! I don't know how this character would feel in this situation but let's pretend it's analogous to how I feel about a completely different situation that is not in the least related!")

From last week on the BBC, Daily caffeine 'protects brain': By which they mean, rabbits were less likely to suffer the consequences of a fat-rich diet if they were also administered caffeine. Still, any excuse to justify my increasing coffee intake. >_>

Via Lifehacker, How to bind papers without staples or clips: Useful when you run out of staples in the lab stapler.

Also, some book-related links up on bibliophages here.

Yours &c.

Blair Hall Apts., on the Feast of St. Romuald

My old desktop computer went through boot failure a couple of days ago, before I had a chance to transfer files to my new iMac. What a nightmare! I spent the weekend trying to reinstall Windows about a dozen times and reconnecting my two hard drives in different combinations in hopes of trying to fix the problem. I even ended up reformatting my boot drive (which luckily has none of my files). In the end, what it took was changing the hard drive configuration and running chkdsk on both drives before I managed to boot Windows successfully. After two sleepless nights, I was able to access my files again! Yay! Everything is now moved onto my iMac, and all the important files are backed up on DVD. I also had to hunt down all the missing drivers and reinstall programs on the old desktop, which is now the family computer and hooked up to the Internet. Mother is complaining that she can't access any of her old bookmarks, and Father wants me to hurry up and install Microsoft Office. Sheesh.

We've had Internet access, thanks to my father's laptop (which is also on its last legs), but I haven't been checking LJ for the past few days out of sheer exhaustion (although do note that I haven't failed to check my email religiously). Now that I'm going back through my friends list, that may have been an unexpectedly good thing because apparently there's been a bit of a kerfluffle about blind_go? Does it even qualify as a kerfluffle? Actually, I'm kind of bemused because I think it's the first time that something I'm directly involved in has been the subject of one of Charmian's fandom meta posts. ^_^ I'm also not really sure what's going on since Aja's original post is friends-locked, so everything I'm about to say is based on what I've read in a few reaction posts.

I never expected blind_go to get so large, and it's been a pleasant surprise. As a mod, I've had my share of worries about potential wank fodder: the competitive nature of the challenge, the influx of new writers versus old guard, the deadline pressures, etc. We do try our best to reduce such stresses (hence the support threads and the weekly chats), but actually the lack of conflict is mostly due to the maturity of Hikaru no Go fandom as a whole. <3 But let us know if there's anything we can do (as mods, I mean) to make it better.

From what I can tell, one of the allegations in the original post was that the community doesn't usually give rise to fic that the poster wants to read. It's true that via the theme sets, silvermuse89 and I may encourage certain types of fic to be written. I don't think that it's any secret that we like AUs and minor characters, for example. But nothing is binding, and I doubt that our preferences really have all that much effect on what the writers choose to write. What blind_go does seem to do is encourage writers to push themselves and try out things they haven't tried before, and that may mean different sorts of fics may be posted than what writers would write otherwise. But hey, that's part of the challenge too, and I wouldn't change it even if I could. ::shrugs::

Anyway, from comments in issen4's response, there was a good point brought up that perhaps Hikaru no Go could use more fic challenges, which I support 100%. As I've said to zoesque before, silvermuse89 and I will happily coordinate the blind_go schedule with any other challenges, so just let us know if you're thinking of organizing one! ^_^

That reminds me: daisy_chan has been advertising ihikago, which is holding sign-ups for its second round here. Go join! I admit, I never have the patience to actually sit through and listen to an entire podfic, but it's fun to hear what people's voices sound like. ^_^

Also, really late but go read cyberpunk issue of imaginarybeasts! (I really should remember to go and leave comments.) I meant to write for this issue, but despite much patience on lacewood's part, I couldn't make the story finish on time. Oh well, perhaps for a future issue. The next issue's theme is "heat wave" (sign up here).

I have a goodreads profile (thanks to bravecows and lacewood). Friend me if you have one too!

I told everyone that I was going to bum around in New York for the summer, but actually I've found that bumming around is hard work. >_< Bike-riding practice, driving lessons, marathoning both seasons of Hana Yori Dango with angelyrique, watching 쩐의전쟁 (War of Money) and 불량커플 (Bad Couple) online...more on that next time. (War of Money is the hit K-drama of the season. It's based on a manhwa and the perfect choice for those of you who prefer shounen-style plots.)

Yours &c.

Post-script: Thanks so much to everyone who gave me advice re: housing and finding roommates. I was feeling a little hysterical when I wrote that entry, and reading your comments helped me calm down and feel more in control of the situation. I did manage to contact another incoming student who's agreed to room with me, and we're currently looking for apartments.

Ad Exteriore Mundo,

I'm finally here. ::wipes sweat off forehead:: This livejournal looks nothing like what I want it to look like, but I presume I can focus on editing the colors later. Thanks to lush_rimbaud who sent me the code. ^_^ Danke, Lush!

So, let's see, what should I write about? Hm...what about how horrible my computer is? I've been telling everyone not to buy a Sony, so I'll say it out loud to all of you. DON'T BUY A SONY! I have a Vaio laptop and all its parts have broken down, one by one, exactly a half-year after the warranty ended. Yuck. So now I get disconnected every other minute from MSN. Of course, MSN Dial-Up Internet Access is pretty horrible in and of itself. I wish I could switch to DSL, but I don't want to complain to my parents, since I'll be off at college with the wonders of Ethernet in a year.

I'm not going to write a long entry today, but expect them from me during the week.

...Tari