oh look an original post

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

While I’m talking about this sort of thing:

Does anyone happen to know of a way I can still play either of the pair of Wild Thornberrys animal-rescue games the Nickelodeon website used to have in their browser-games section back in the early-mid 00′s?

I don’t expect to be able to archive them locally (though that would certainly be nice), but I would like to play them again and I can‘t find either of them anywhere. I’d probably even be willing to pay a few dollars, if they’re available for sale.

Tags:

#oh look an original post #Wild Thornberrys #my childhood #games #(that Internet Archive copy of M&Ms: The Lost Formulas was great) #(but I can’t find anything like that for these)

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

Also, I have acquired a new appreciation for AO3’s download function, which is great at facilitating archiving.

And I have acquired a new opposite-of-appreciation for fanfiction.net, which goes so far the other direction that you are *not allowed to copy text from a fic*. I did a couple of small fics by *going into the page source*, finding the fic *there*, pasting it into a LibreOffice document, and *manually replacing the br tags with line breaks* (there was probably some way to automate that last bit). Then I hit upon the solution of simply saving the entire page as an HTML file, which seems to have worked. Good: I was not looking forward to manually inserting line breaks in Chanson de Geste.

Tags:

#oh look an original post #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers

{{next post in sequence, branch 1}}

{{next post in sequence, branch 2}}

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been doing archiving again today, downloading local copies of things that previously existed (in versions accessible to me) only on the Internet.

The thing about archiving is that it *hurts*. Not having done it–the moment when you want to remind yourself how something went and find it isn’t there to tell you, will never be there again–hurts a lot more, so I keep doing this. My past is valuable to me and I want to keep hold of it, have it available, and yet it always hurts to immerse myself in it.

(Today I’m saving works of fiction, works I think I would miss if their links rotted. (Some of them have already rotted. Most were salvageable through the Internet Archive. But only most.) I didn’t think that would hurt, but it turns out that it does, that they evoke the time periods I read them in.)

I know a lot of people hate their past selves, for their ignorance and foolishness. I think this is another version of that impulse, but I don’t hate past-me.

I don’t hate *her*. I hate the people who did this to her.

I think that’s a lot of the problem. I think maybe a lot of the pain of archiving isn’t inherent to the task in general, but because most of the stuff I’m archiving–this project and previous projects–is from around my late teens, give or take, and I was in a lot of pain then. A lot of it I hardly acknowledged at the time, or if I acknowledged it I shrugged and figured that was just how things were.

Maybe it’s good for me to immerse myself in the past, sometimes, if only to show myself how far I’ve come.

Tags:

#our roads may be golden or broken or lost #oh look an original post #amnesia cw #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #((and can’t be added at the end because there are more than 20 tags so category tags won’t register there)) #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #I’m not even sure how long it’s been since the last time I cried #months and months I think #I’m not crying now I’m just saying I cry a *lot* less than I did then #(crying frequency is often a helpful guide to my current sanity levels if I find I’m having trouble telling from the inside) #((bear in mind I don’t experience estrogen’s effects on crying)) #((it’s not cathartic it’s not helpful and if things are going at all well it’s *not* frequent)) #I should probably stop for the day #I hate to leave tasks like these half-completed #but I’ve been neglecting my other daily tasks today and they need tending to as well #(I wonder whether I still have further to go) #(if late-twenties!me will look back at some background pain I’m so accustomed to as to hardly notice) #(and flinch) #(and pity me) #(and be grateful not to suffer like that anymore) #((my bet is on something finance-related)) #((I am aware of certain echoes between this post and two posts ago)) #((I maintain that accepting my lot is better than impotent anger at it)) #((but I acknowledge that having a lot that does not tempt anyone towards impotent anger at it would be better still)) #(((though I would like to point out that a lot of past-me’s pain was caused by feeling obligated to cultivate anger)))

{{next post in sequence, branch 1}}

{{next post in sequence, branch 2}}

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

I have collected the data and calculated the results for 2017, and the main result is:

Over the past six months, we were short an average of $65/week. Just $65. That’s all.

(Considering how large some of the outlier charges were, there must have been some individual weeks in which we had more money at the end of the week than at the start. Maybe even individual months.)

We are *damn* close, and this could very well be the year we get in the black.

Tags:

#(why are people insisting on spinning my finances negatively when we have *this*) #now if you’ll excuse me I’m late for accounting homework #(I am amused by the amount of my life involving spreadsheets lately) #(spreadsheets for school. spreadsheets for play. spreadsheets for personal finances.) #(just. spreadsheets.) #(it’s pretty great tbh) #adventures in human capitalism #I might take up audio transcription again at some point #every bit helps #oh look an original post

{{next post in sequence}}

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

True rebellion is accepting my lot.

Tags:

#sounds like a shitpost but isn’t #competing access needs #don’t you tell me that I deserve better #I take great comfort in not deserving better #it sure as hell beats cultivating misery #oh look an original post #somewhat related to #our roads may be golden or broken or lost #but currently mostly inspired by #in which Brin has a job #(okay fine before anyone is all ”oh no what happened”) #(both my job and my menial Internet labour cut my hours) #(and my job stopped providing one free meal a week) #(now can everyone please stop trying to ~commiserate~ and ~fuck those bastards~ or whatever and just let me get on with things) #fuck anyone who insists that I need to be angry about this state of affairs #the only thing we have to get angry about is anger itself #tag rambles

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

I wonder what’s going on in my brain right now, like on a neurological level. I bet it’s fascinating.

Tags:

#woke up yesterday morning feeling rather more tired than I would expect given that I only got ~half an hour less sleep than usual #(8 instead of 8.5 – 9) #looked at calendar #start date of last menstrual period was two weeks ago #well I guess that explains that then #(slept 9.5 hours today) #(which was probably a bad idea) #(given that this is not the kind of tiredness that unconsciousness helps) #(but it was hard to drag myself out of bed) #((I mean I guess it would make up for yesterday’s sleep-deprivation component?)) #((but that component was probably pretty small)) #I would probably make an excellent case study of some sort #oh look an original post #tag rambles #sexuality and lack thereof #people who can distinguish between their drive for sleep and drive for sex fascinate me #and so do people who can’t #just in somewhat different ways

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

The official Times Square livestream crashed at 11:59:50, presumably overwhelmed by all the viewers.

The version of Auld Lang Syne Mom picked out was screechy and failed to have a Scottish accent.

That one Scottish guy came through, as he has every year.

I try not to read prophetic symbolism into things, but this reads as “some rough patches (mostly poverty-related), but things will work out okay in the end”. I suppose that’s not so bad.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Tags:

#look the ball drop is nice but it’s not worth $1200/year #(the cost of TV service) #(though we could probably have managed to get it down to ~$900) #((and maybe if you specifically wanted it *just* for the New Years coverage)) #((and you went through a lot of buying-and-cancelling hassle)) #((you might be able to get it for $25)) #((but it would be a *lot* of hassle)) #New Years #oh look an original post #adventures in human capitalism #I should probably go to bed now #(I normally go to bed sometime between 12 and 12:30)

{{next post in sequence}}

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

brin-bellway:

*

I have been seeing a disturbing amount of Maccabee glorification lately in the name of anti-anti-Semitism, so:

This Hanukkah, I would like to reiterate that I do not condone killing people for attempting to convert away from Judaism. Including and *especially* when the reason they are attempting to convert is because they think being non-Jewish will be safer for them.

This is not what supporting me looks like.

Tags:

#of *course* I would rather be an alive Hellenist than a dead Jew #and what the hell kind of right do you have to stop me? #why the hell would you even *want* to if your goal is to help me? #if you really think I’m going to be up against a hard place the *last* thing you should be is a rock #no I don’t think it’s *entirely* that people didn’t think through the Maccabee stuff #because I see it in other non-Maccabee forms too #everyone–enemies and ””allies”” alike–wants to keep me trapped in Judaism #at least enemies don’t have the gall to claim they’re doing it for my own good #oh look an original post #Judaism #rants #our roads may be golden or broken or lost #Hanukkah #anti-semitism cw #murder cw

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

Today, I am thankful that my workplace does not play Christmas music.

Tags:

#Top 40 is vastly preferable #(I mean there’s other things I’m thankful for too) #(but this is one of the less obvious ones) #we aren’t actually observing Thanksgiving today because from 1 PM to midnight at least one family member is at work at any given time #we will have our feast on Saturday instead #(note: from what I can gather regarding previous years it really is that they *don’t* play it and not that they start playing it later) #(but I suppose it could do with some wood-knocking anyway) #Christmas #in which Brin has a job #oh look an original post #music #Thanksgiving #this kind of sounds like a joke but it is also completely truthful

{{next post in sequence}}

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

I would like to thank @kaylin881 for providing all the fun of stalking people on the Internet without the ethical issues.

(spoilers regarding Kaylin’s Amenta characters follow)

While reading this post, shortly after reading this post (and its OOC comments), a thought hit me:

“Are reject-your-reality and existing-while-red *siblings*?”

Basic public demographics line up: same country, appropriate genders, they’re the same age but Amentans do have twins sometimes so that’s not especially strong counterevidence. And they’re both written by the same person, which counts for something.

I did some digging in their archives, and:

Reject-your-reality/existing-while-red’s brother: intelligent and loves literature/intelligent and loves literature; red†/red; teacher†/teacher; bad springs/bad springs.

Existing-while-red/reject-your-reality’s sister: mild springs, main problem with spring is patients hitting on her on work/mild springs, main problem with spring is customers hitting on her on work; doctor/person who patches up reject-your-reality’s injuries.

Neither ever seems to refer to their sibling as being older or younger than they are.

(…did you make both of them have a tag for talking about their sibling *specifically* to aid this kind of analysis?)

Plus this bit.

This post has suddenly gotten much funnier, like a non-sexual version of that Batman post that was going around recently. (”Sometimes he joins us.”)

(It’s possible I’m late to the game here, but in my defence I hadn’t been following reject-your-reality very closely. And if you’ve ever made any OOC comments explicitly revealing this, I missed them.)

Thank you again for the fun game! I do love a good stalking puzzle.

†These could be construed as cheating, but I’m not Amentan and I never said I’d restrict myself to only sources of information accessible to Amentans.

Tags:

#if this were the real world I would be much less confident in my conclusion #but in fiction ”this is all a coincidence” solutions should be given less weight #(although I suppose there’s still ”it’s a deliberate false trail”) #Amenta #oh look an original post

{{next post in sequence}}