OK. Seems mu rebirth ritual didn't work as well as I'd hoped. Still can't get stuff done on time. Still no work. Still no follow-through. And now I'm sick, we're broke and I need to rely on the kindness of friends to get a copy of the disability application printed out and delivered to me so I can get it filled out and passed to the doctor. Needless to say, I'm felling like shit.

If, by some chance, you feel drawn to help, there's a paypal button on my bio page.

After two rounds of phone calls with Fry's and far longer waiting around in the store than it should have taken, we have a loaner monitor for our computer. Thank you all for all the suggestions and offers.

We woke up this morning to our computer playing music to us. Not unusual, as we set it up as our alarm clock. Unfortunately, while we woke up, our monitor didn't. No power LED glowed, no picture on the monitoer.

Unpluggung and replugging didn't rouse it. Replacing the power cord with a new one didn't fix it. So now it's in the shop. Actually, now it's waiting at Fry's for them to ship it to the shop under warranty, and it won't be back for up to 6 weeks.

There wouldn't, by any strange chance, be someone here in the bay area that has a spare VGA monitor we could borrow for up to 6 weeks, would there?

Due to the press of prep for Pantheacon, we're giving our hostess a break this month and will not hold our S.F. Bay Area Ogam study group until February. Sorry for the short notice.

I would appreciate it if someone who has either an iPhone or an iPod Touch ( or both) would check out this link to see if it starts streaming music to you. And please let me know whether it does or not.

Thank you.

Due to the offical class date being only 2 days after Christmas, no Ogam study group will be being held this month. Just too insane to try.

OK, here's the project I need help with. I need to find a way to construct an mp3 (not mp4 or m4a) container that contains a stream URL. If this is not possible, I need to figure out how to create an mp3 container that dynamically contains the output of the stream URL. Can anyone talk to me about this. Off line is just fine.

I just noticed that this Saturday is the fourth Saturday of the month. And that means it's time for another meeting of the SF Bay Ogham Study Group. Yes, we'll be having it this months (barring flood, earthquake, death or international incident). 2 p.m. in Hayward. If you need directions, contact either me or hilarypoet.

One topic of this month's meeting will be whether or not to hold the Decembewr meeting, due to its proximity to Christmas and New Year's Eve.

Due to lysana and myself both being sick with different phases of an upper respiratry illness, there will be no Ogam study group meeting today. I'm sorry for the late notice, but I'm not thinking too clearly right now. We'll try again next month.

Sorry for the tardiness in getting this notice out, but I only found out about this after it had been announced. I've got another shirt available at Ziraxia. It may look familiar -

Save the last Dance for Me

It's on special until the end of Monday, so hurry if you want one for the cheapest price. We got our copies of the previous one and the quality is quite good.

Apparently, there were enough votes for the nice fols at Ziraxia to decide to produce my shirt. Not only that, but they made it one of their weekly specials, so it's starting off at only $13 (OK, $12.99, but I hate the pennies thing) until Monday. So, if you'd like a nice, high-quality, silk-screened shirt from me, go to Ziraxia now before the price goes up!

And here's their picture of it:

I've created a new shirt design but I'm trying to put it out via a different service. This company is a full service silk-screening company that will license my design and sell it via their site. However, and this is where you come in, they need to have people go to the site and show interest in it by rating the design.

I'm not asking you to give it a high rating if you don't like it, but I would appreciate it if you at least went to look at it and gave me your feedback, even if you don't want to rate it on the site.

Here's the link.

Picture the scenario. A reporter asking a series of questions at a McCain/Palin press conference:

"Just one final question, sir. You've said that Governor Palin has had Foreign Relations experience. This implies that she has had official contact with foreign powers in the course of her duties. So my question, sir, is this. Since becoming Governor of Alaska, exactly how many foreigners has Governor Palin had relations with?"

Both lysana and I are feeling under the weather and don't want to expose anyone else to whatever we have. Thus, the August session of the Bay Area Ogam Study Group (yes, I finally came up with a name) is pushed back to Sept. 27 (the fourth Saturday) when we will work on Fe(a)rn and Sail(le)

Saturday (yes, two days from now) is the date of the next Ogam group meeting when we will (hopefully) finally start looking at the actual feda (starting with be(i)th & lu(i)s). Contact me if you still need direction. Please tell anyone you know that's intetrested and please let me know, as we'd like an idea of who's showing up.

After last month's lack of attendance, we will likely be closing the group down if no one shows up again this time, so please come if you want the group to go on.

The SF Bay Area Ogham study group will be meeting the fourth Saturday of each month - that's nine days from now - in Hayward starting about 2 p.m. Contact me if you need more info.

We're on schedule to have our ogham study group meet tomorrow in Hayward as previously announced. We'll be covering Beth and, if we have time, Luis. Contact me if you need details.

Due to not just one, but three conventions being held in the Bay Area on the normal weekend for our Ogham study group this month, we are not going to meet this months but will be back on our regular 4th Saturday schedule in June. Please mark your calendars now, as I won't even attempt to guarantee that I'll remind people in time next month.

I have been sick since Sunday and haven't had a chance to prepare for the Ogam study group this week, so I'll be showing up rather underprepared. That said, I'm still willilng to go through with this week's session if everyone else is. I'm on the mend and there's a very good chance that I will be well by then. Let me know if you're still interested.

The group meets at 2 p.m. at hilarypoet & Marshall's place. Drop me a note if you need directions.

I know this is late notice, and I apologize profusely for not getting everything together for this announcement sooner, but we're finally ready to start the Ogam study group and it's happening tomorrow starting at 2 p.m. and will reoccur on the 4th Saturday of each month for the foreseeable future. We'll be using Erynn Rowan Laurie's book "Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom" as our principal text.

Address and directions are available by request.

Hope to see you there.

cross-posted to cr_r and sfbay_cr

Due to our G5 tower suddenly deciding that it didnt want to boot properly, we are not going to be able to get most of the mqail that will be coming in for us at most of our email addresses until it has been either repaired or replaced.

So if you don't get a reply from us for the next week or so, that's why.

OK, this is your three week warning that lysana and I will start holding an Ogam study group (I don't feel I'm advanced enough to call it a class) using erynn999's Ogam book as out textbook. The class will be held at hilarypoet's apartment in Hayward (details on how to get there to come as soon as we get the official directions) and is open to the public, though we'd like to know how many are coming as it's not a large apartment.

The study group will meet every 4th Saturday of the month, which means we will be meeting on the 26th of this month to start the process. I would encourage everyone to Pick up erynn999's book in advance, as we will be referring to it repeatedly. Those wanting to dive deeper into the ogam would be well served by picking up a copy of Damian McManus' A Guide to Ogam and the Auraicept Na N'éces (I think I got the accent right), both available through the Books for Scholars website.

Edit:</b> I've been reminded I forgot to include the time we're intending to start. We're aiming for a 2 p.m. start and each session shouldn't run longer than 2 hours (granting that we're a chatty bunch).

Tags: ogam class

lysana and I would like to make a request of one of our freinds in what I shal label solely for convenience as the British Isles. I know that term can be a touchy one, but it's the only one I know to refer to all of them in one lump.

There's a book being reprinted in vety limited quantites (150 copies total) from an academic press in Ireland. They're releasing it in two waves, one from Ireland at the beginning of December and one from Oregan midway through January. While the January version would be more convenient to us monetarily, we feel the demand among Celtic pagans is greater than this academic press realises (as they are thinking solely of scholarly, non-pagan academics in their plans), thus we would like to get in on the 'rest of the world' sale that starts in Ireland, rather than the US-only sale that starts with whatever's left from Oregon.

Would any of you nice people be willing to trans-ship a book (maybe include more than one copy) to us? While Ireland is slightly (€1.50) cheaper, we're not too concerned and will gladly pay the shipping expenses.

Thank you.

The list is the 106 books most often noted as unread by Library Thing users. Bold is for books you've read. Italics for books you've started but haven't finished. Strikethrough is for books you found unreadable.

( Cut for your protectionCollapse )

lysana and I would like to remind you thaqt we need your answers to the anniversary party poll I posted by this Friday, so we can estimate what we need to buy and bring. If people don't take the poll and show up without telling us, we're not going to have enough, even with those of you coming bringing a dish along (please bring something for 4-6 people to share).

Hope to see you there.

Ran across this in an F-locked journal, so I can't refer you to it.

Based on the lj interests lists of those who share my more unusual interests, the interests suggestion meme thinks I might be interested in
1. men score: 10    Huh? Uh, no.
2. hedonism score: 10    Well, yeah, but isn't everybody?
3. coffee score: 10    What's the phrase? Oh, yeah. "Not no, but HELL no."
4. sushi score: 10    Duh.
5. sarcasm score: 10     Who? Me?
6. tattoos score: 10    ...Sometimes.
7. erotica score: 10Me? No, never. It's just a passing thing.
8. kissing score: 10    Well, duh.
9. dancing score: 9    With my knees?
10. cats score: 9    They're okay.
11. photography score: 9    "Do you ever take, you know, candid photos?"
12. piercings score: 8    Maybe.
13. free speech score: 8    There was any doubt?
14. self-discovery score: 8    Mmmmmm, it's a possibility.
15. flirting score: 8    I've been told I'm not bad at it. I usually don't realize that's what I'm doing.
16. classical music score: 7    Raised on it.
17. history score: 7    Certain aspects of it, certainly.
18. celtic music score: 7    Another no-brainer.
19. hot tubs score: 7    Who doesn't?
20. science fiction fandom score: 7    *Checks fandom resume* *Boggles at entries over three decades* Who? Me?

Type your username here to find out what interests it suggests for you.

coded by ixwin
Find out more

(Yes, I had to edit in all the comments.)

I know I posted a different version of this labyrinth here before, but there'a special version of it available on the Woo Beach Designs site specially colored to take you on a metaphorical labyrinth walk through the three realms of the Celtic world: Land Sea and Sky. As always, clicking on the picture will take you to the CafePress store where you can buy shirts, cups, prints and more.

I'm about to go on a bit of a rant

The CEO of Six Apart, the owners of LiveJournal, has made a good-faith attempt at a plain language explanation of what the current stance on the TOS is. You can read it in the lj_biz community in this post.

Why am I going to rant? Not because of what he did or didn't say. I'm going to rant over the number of people who a) can't understand plain English, and b) people who want every single possible condition written out in advance.

Let's take these one at a time.

A: Not understanding plain English

Typical of this group are people who want explanations of what is meant by advocacy in the sentence, "No content that is created to plan, encourage, or advocate hate crimes, the abuse of children, or rape". They want to know if just talking about child pornography is advocacy. Let's look at the dictionary, shall we? Hmmmm, seems to me that the verb "to advocate" mean to "preach, speak, plead, or argue in favor of" some issue. Doesn't seem to me that discussing it is included in that. And, quite frankly, if it had only been one person asking about that, I wouldn't be upset. But I'm on the third page of comments out of (currently) 6 and that question keeps getting asked, even though it's been answered within the first 20 comment chains.

Then there are the people who have asked about whether advocating legalizing X or Y would be considered in violation of TOS. No. You are advocating the alteration of the law. Attempts at altering laws are legal activities. If you were advocating doing something while it was still illegal, that would be advocating something illegal.

B: Every possible circumstance

OK, let's just think about this for a moment. Would it be possible to even write out every possible circumstance of one of the people on LJ interacting with the laws of the land(s)? No. So why is it so imperative the LJ publish every single possible permutation of whether this type of fanfic with this specific verbal depiction of that specific act would be acceptable under TOS? Give me a break.

Look at it this way. The more specifically you set your rules, the more things that you want to avoid will get through. What if someone forgot to mention that a photoshopped picture of a first-year Hermione rogering a first-year Ron would be considered illegal while noting that a similar picture of a first-year Harry doing the same thing was illegal. You'd have people screaming about how, "they didn't tell me that wasn't acceptable" all over the place because that specific example wasn't in the library shelf of things that you couldn't do.

The reason for giving rules flexibility is so that they can be applied to novel situations. The fact that they're working to make it both externally and internally more clear as to how those rules apply is a massive improvement.

So, please, stop bitching over the grains of sand they haven't enumerated and thank them for providing a better beach shovel.

-30-

This is the text of the email I just sent to the AFA over their campaign to block making sexuality and gender identity causes for inclusion in the hate crimes categories:

How dare you have the audacity to call decent Christians to support you in your campaign against H.R. 1592 and S. 1105 by LYING to them about what it says? There is no possible way that a law that criminalizes " willfully causes bodily injury" and "attempts to cause bodily injury" can be seen as making it illegal, or even actionable, for someone to speak out against homosexuality.

You are frauds and hypocrites and the furthest thing from Christians that ever walked the planet. You are attempting to spread fear and hate among the followers of Jesus. Not only that, but you're trying to get them to pay you for doing what Jesus never would have done - try to institutionalize hatred.

How can you look at yourselves in the mirror without horror at the hypocrisy you spread by promoting hatred to the followers of the man who preached love? Bigotry to the people of the Son of God who told them to go out into the world?

When the world ends, I foresee much of the smell of brimstone in your judgement. You have committed sin against the Holy Spirit and you shall not be forgiven without correcting this.

I call on you to publicly admit to your lying and to ask forgiveness of your fellow Christians. Otherwise, no Christian should share fellowship with you.

Edit: To make it clear - it is my feeling that, if you wish to put your feelings across to someone as effectively as possible, you should use the language and conceptual set most familiar to them when doing so. If you speak their language, they will be less likely to dismiss what you've said without listening to it. This does not necessarily mean that they will ever act on it, but at least they will listn to it.

The American Family Association has just caused my blood to boil over, something the current temperatures of 95ºF had not managed to do. I just received a missive from them claiming that a proposed law currently working its way through both houses of Congress would make it "a crime for pastors and churches to speak against homosexuality".

In the body of the email, they go on to give the bill numbers (H.R. 1592 and S. 1105) while claiming that these bills would make it illegal to speak out against homosexuality. Then they give links to their pages on those bills which reiterate the claims they've made and selectively quote from the bills themselves, making it look official, without actually posting what the bills say.

What do the bills say? Well, they basically add sexual orientation and gender identity to religion, gender and "race" to the conditions that make a crime a "hate crime". And guess what? They even identify what they mean by crime in this case. The relevant phrases (and, in fact, the only phrases) are "willfully causes bodily injury" and "attempts to cause bodily injury".

Now, I don't know about you, but the phrase "sticks and stones make break my bones, but words will never hurt me" sounds like aq good dividing line between criminal and non-criminal activity, especially when the bills specifically talk about the former. It's bad enough Wildmon and crew are bigotted assholes of the first water, but to flat-out lie about what they're doing is unconscionable. I hereby call on all people of good will to write to them and demand a public apology for their blatant attempts to deceive people.

To read what H.R. 1592 and S. 1105 have to say, I commend the Library of Congress' Thoms to you for your edification.

To write to the AFA, you can use their own mail form at this page, call them at (662)844-5036, Fax them at (662)842-7798 or send a physical letter to them at : American Family Association, P.O. Drawer 2440, Tupelo, MS 38803