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Nov. 11th, 2009 @ 11:20 pm (subject left blank)
Feeling: calm
 Hi, I don't know if anyone is intersted, but I am selling a copy of Babylon 5 Other Voices Vol. 1 and Babylon 5 Other Voices Vol 3 (which includes Gaiman's script) on ebay.
I thought I'd post the info on here in case anyone is a collector since they are very rare and to my knowledge have not shown up on ebay before. 
The link is:
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m38.l1313&_nkw=babylon+5+other+voices&_sacat=See-All-Categories

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[info]jellynewt, posting in [info]babylon5
Nov. 11th, 2009 @ 02:00 pm Network Maintenance: Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 04:00-06:00 UTC/GMT
On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.
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[info]dwell, posting in [info]lj_maintenance
Nov. 10th, 2009 @ 11:59 pm You broke your own 'cos you can't finish what you start
Hearing: Elliott Smith - Alameda | Powered by Last.fm
Today I walked into Cafe 3 and asked the staff what they thought about Bob Dylan's concert (it had been mentinoed before.) I then listened to em sweep the floor and both describe how the performance wasn't as energetic as she'd like and how Dylan still manages to mean everything and so much. Then I asked for some spring rolls.

The spring-rolls were custom-made because the regular materials were out of stock. Apparently some customers get particular if a cheese or a topping is switched, but the majority appreciate it. I have signed over my permission for improvisation at any time.

As I left I said "Goodbye X, see you around." One of the other staff had mentioned the name the last time I was there, so I tucked it into my head. The staff was a bit knocked by this, ey retorted with "Yeah, see you .... later this week?" I presume this was because nobody knows my name. It was nice to pointedly trip up someone like that.

--

Bought a book on knitting socks at the knitter's guild, it seems like something I'd make use of.
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[info]gaelotek
Nov. 10th, 2009 @ 07:44 pm Babylon 5 is on the television in the UK
Feeling: pleased
Sky Channel 165/FX is showing Midnight on the Firing Line.

I haven't seen it on UK television since its original transmission (and even then I tended to fall asleep before it started because it was on so late).

This is so cool.

I had to share with those that'd understand my glee. :)
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[info]_happyme_, posting in [info]babylon5
Nov. 10th, 2009 @ 12:16 am Space:Above and Beyond
Hearing: Rachid Taha - 08 - nah'seb
so, I decided to take out my S:AAB dvd's and give them a rewatch
I plug in the first disc and I notice the B5 station sitting on the title screen, also there's a speech in the pilot episode very reminisent of the speech given by the president at the battle of the line (or close to it)
yanno the 'we cannot move the earth' one ... yeah, it's in there

does anyone know what's up with this?? was JMS involved in this somehow, even tho I haven't spotted his name in the credits, and why would he let the writers use that speech or even part of it.
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[info]geg, posting in [info]babylon5
Nov. 10th, 2009 @ 12:53 am Sweet Love for Planet Earth
Hearing: Public Image Ltd. - Under the House | Powered by Last.fm
Watched M. Butterfly yesterday, a few hours after Stardust Memories. It was delicious. In many ways the opposite of the Allen flick. It was brutal and gross in a way, but the core was beautiful in the exact way Rene describes Pucchini's opera as being. I especially loved the little clues throughout the movie , those deliberately selected sentences that explicitly described the open secret (between playwrite and viewer) that the opera singer is in fact a man. I especially loved the ending, which mirrors the opening excerpt from Madama Butterfly (the one where she kills herself), where Rene the Frenchman dresses up in japanese women's dress and performs the same excerpt. Except here it is the Frenchman killing himself while mourning for the Oriental man who does not deserve him.
Role reversal constantly rears its ugly head as various "feminist" "reimagings" attempt to make their point, but here is the one case where the reversal has been made genuinely, where through supposedly total submission the stereotypically asian femininity winds up colonizing and destroying the fatally devout European imperialist who would rather die than resolve his love with his decimation.
And of course, it answers nothing about the battle of the sexes. It answers nothing, as all fine art should.

--

Went for a walk last night listening to Fuck Buttons, didn't return home until the album ended. Like Autechre, it wasn't music but was instead an aural representation of something, my mindset or mood or something else too difficult to grasp. It was perfect, I closed my eyes and stopped paying attention to everything. The outside world synchronized in rhythms of Fuck Buttons, it was as it should be (in album sequence).
Alternatively, I was once again okay the the outside world.
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[info]gaelotek
Nov. 9th, 2009 @ 08:18 pm LOL Typos
So... I just voted in the referenda (go and vote, by the way) and completed the survey that follows... And this is the message I received:

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

Thanks, Feds. I really needed to be severed today. :)

(P.S. I post this merely in jest of hilarious typos and not as any sort of commentary on FEDS! Please don't start any sort of crazy arguments! We're just here for the laughs!)
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[info]kaytea, posting in [info]uwaterloo
Nov. 9th, 2009 @ 07:43 pm fuuuuuuuuuuu
Hearing: Love - Old Man | Powered by Last.fm
Fuck this week's daystar and the last. Fuck. Fuccccccccccccck.

I came home to Serenity, being played by my housemates. My housemates are always doing something, just chilling out, watching westerns or listening to music or asking me to cook or whatever. Did I ever tell you I kind of love my housemates? They form homes. Or a home, at least.

Serenity is kind of shit though. It doesn't hold a candle to the show, too focused, too glossy, too serious, too epic ... but watching it again .... it doesn't have a soul, either. It does all those movie things but is gaunt, unfleshed, like an empty squirt of masturbation it only exists because we need something but can't find the real thing anywhere, anymore.

I have a music addition. It was handleable with CDs and downloads, but vinyl is just too much. It's all I can do just limit myself to desert island picks. My desert crate is half a century, probably. I bought Astor Piazzolla 's "Tango Zero Hour" despite not owning it on CD. I broke my own commandment regarding vinyl. What do I do now?

But for that waste of moment, I ran into Adrienne closing up MoT Waterloo, and I talked with her about T.S. Eliot and Eliot-era books and suburban/subrural hellholes for a good half-hour before she kicked me out to work. That was probably worth it, as all little moments are.

Now I'm going to listen to Avalon on $1.00 vinyl, which is about how much it should cost for its pricelessness.
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[info]gaelotek
Nov. 9th, 2009 @ 05:34 pm (subject left blank)
Hey everyone,

I want to take my girlfriend out for dinner on Friday, and I'm looking for a decent restaurant (on a student budget). Nothing too fancy, just a place with good food and a nice atmosphere. Anybody know of anything?

Thanks a bunch.
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[info]gregs_grotto, posting in [info]uwaterloo
Nov. 8th, 2009 @ 12:36 pm Stardust Memories
Hearing: Manic Street Preachers - Yes | Powered by Last.fm
A 70/30 blend of Allen and Fellini.

The people who introduced me to this movie, and Woody Allen in general, hated this movie, the people I'm living with now adore it.

I adore it too, I want to say it's my favourite if only for anticipating Guy Maddin's "My Winnipeg" twenty-seven years early. I think, however, that one's appreciation of this movie, perhaps of Woody Allen in general, says more about one's character than anyone's taste in art. But what do I know about art?

One either gets what he's talking about, nostalgically, shamefully, or one thinks he's full of unrealistic shit. And this is why I both enjoy this movie and feel terribly saddened by it, I guess. Woody Allen is perhaps the the closest thing I have to a physical role model. But even then, I can't always abide his personality. Or perhaps, better said, I wish I wasn't self-conscious or self-aware(?): if I wasn't so, perhaps I'd steal that same personality and produce some fine-tasting mistakes out of my obsessions.
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[info]gaelotek
Nov. 7th, 2009 @ 09:49 pm White Whale
Hearing: Mastodon - Sea Beast | Powered by Last.fm
Thursday we held and informal stitch'n'bitch in Whole Lotta Gelato, where I taught myself how to ball yarn. While doing so I began to feel the yarn, as it were, anticipate how it wanted to curve and fall. Like with a car or a a fun code project, I forgot who was the manipulator and what was being manipulated.  That was good.

What was bad is that I haven't been able to advance more than three rows before realizing I've screwed up and frogging(?) the entire project. This was supposed to be an easy contrast to my month-and-a-half-long scarf!

Was approached twice about my knitting at Seven Shores. The wait staff said nothing about it but we did talk about Bob Dylan for a bit.

Found out I have mutual friends with the Matter of Taste crew, and we joshed which was pretty awesome given our otherwise customer-server relationship. Word of the day: Ho-rista.

--

Watched "A Few Dollars More" with Catherine. She found it via youtube, which meant we had to watch 37 fragments in order. It felt like the digital analogue of a set of film reels, except with extremely clumsy transfers.
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[info]gaelotek
Nov. 6th, 2009 @ 09:44 pm (subject left blank)
I know I read about it before today's Imprint, but I can't find it anywhere else so re:Calendar changes cause confusion on page 3 of the most recent Imprint. I don't understand how Feds and the Registrar work and god knows what else I just let them rape me for several thousand dollars at the start of each semester, but anyways the whole thing is rambly and confusing so is there anyone who can explain this?

Like, why don't they just have frosh week occur the week before it would normally occur, rather than starting the semester off on a Thursday[?] in the middle of the week? Is the assumption that my parents will be able to ferry me and my suitcases to Waterloo in the middle of the work week, or that I'm going to arrive the weekend before and then either go back home and come back for Thursday (after giving Greyhound all my moneys..) or just sit around doing nothing from Monday-Wednesday? IE is the Registrar proposing something retarded, and if so what are the chances that this is going to take effect anyways?

thx
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[info]arremmmdee, posting in [info]uwaterloo
Nov. 6th, 2009 @ 09:43 pm Babylon 5 items for sale
Well, if anyone wants them. I have the complete set of B5 micromachines, all six, in the packages. Please let me know if anyone wants them together or separately.

Thanks.
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[info]vampry, posting in [info]babylon5
Nov. 6th, 2009 @ 12:57 pm Jackie Collins Existential Question Time
Hearing: Manic Street Preachers - Peeled Apples | Powered by Last.fm
This has simultaneously been one of the shittiest and most wonderful weeks I can remember surviving through. The question of polarity depends on whether it's dark out or not.

--

I have to reformat my Pre. Well I don't have to, but I think it might get the voice-call subsystem to work again. How'd that happen?

--

I'm going to go home and put the Sex Pistols on the turntable and follow it up with some Manics and Black Saint Sinner Lady. I'm going to ask anyone in the house at the time if they'd like to gob with me.
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[info]gaelotek
Nov. 5th, 2009 @ 01:15 pm LiveJournal Major Notes: Spam counter-attack, RSS feeds again, CSI Deadly Intent contest


The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to [info]xkcd_rss, [info]icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!



[info]c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! [info]c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join [info]c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.



Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at [info]lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
Read more... )
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[info]theljstaff, posting in [info]news
Nov. 5th, 2009 @ 05:47 pm Wallpaper
Feeling: accomplished
I've made a picture of Delenn
Fandom: В5
Character: Delenn
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[info]radak, posting in [info]babylon5
Nov. 5th, 2009 @ 02:16 am (subject left blank)
My first knitting project, a cabled scarf for Arianne, was completed at about eleven twenty-something this evening.

I invited one of my coworkers to craft night and he learned to knit, kind of with my help but I'm not the greatest teacher, just comic relief.

My housemates did not show up though, two of which were expected and the other I hope was not because I neglected him in any way.
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[info]gaelotek
Nov. 4th, 2009 @ 02:55 pm An aside!
Hearing: The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations | Powered by Last.fm
A few friends are confiding in me how they're hitting relationship issues where their boyfriends are pining for ex-lovers or desired lovers, doing a bad job of either accepting the relationships they are in now and that their emotional vestiges aren't really going to go anywhere. You know, emotional adultery. I know many claim it even worse than physical adultery, but does the non-reciprocated nature twist the knife even sharper because the dude is choosing a guaranteed losing battle over guaranteed returns?
It's weird because those boys are committing an old crime of mine, and I can't help but imagine that what I say about these boyfriends is what I'd say about myself. And I can't bring myself to condemn them what they are going through, I can't say that they are necessarily bad men, in fact I kind of feel for them given how little a man is prepared to handle his own feelings, although I do have to advise these women that the men deserve what these women will hopefully throw at them.
Because I was selfish and cowardly then, I am a better person today, perhaps even a great person.

Anything I write here will sound of contradictions, but that's only because I have forgotten that I don't prescribe to intrinsic moralities. When I remember, I shall shudder through waves of emotional import that can only be linearized into the logical 'meh'.
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[info]gaelotek
Nov. 4th, 2009 @ 02:18 pm The Fall of the House of D'costa
My brother is a giant dick right now.

He's not the only one, either. He's one of three guys I know who are currently screaming at women they want to bone because those girls are currently dating someone else. Not really because the people they're dating are in any way detrimental, but because the dicks are coming up with excuses as to why that girls should date *them* instead of reality. In the most passive-aggressive and grind-target's-self-worth down way possible.

Which is lame. The brother element, however, is still getting me, it still irrationally irks me that my brother secretly hates me for essentally getting out of Brampton and being friends with above girl, I think. He's also doing it in ways which reminds me of my dad in the evil times, which leads to other past hangups.

But I've been doing a compare, and you have to ask yourself: The rest of the D'costa males are all chuffed stagnating in Brampton, how is that different from my stagnating in Waterloo, being yr average computer scientist except the golden handcuffs are to a city and not The Corporation?

[info]kousu accuses me of embellishing stories all the time to serve my purposes, which is totally true! My defense is that this journal is not synoptic but a kind of fiction, a tale not as things happened but how I choose to remember them. But I accuse my dad and brother all the time of twisting rhetoric and events to suit their world view and justify their own failings. I genuinely believe that I can do what I do as a form of performance art, turn my existence into one of fiction, but I have to make sure I'm not doing it merely to stroke my own ego, to justify my undeserved self-worth. I have to be doing it to strive to be more than what I am. If I'm going to do it, since I don't think it's intrinsically wrong.

I also have to make sure than when I place the women I place on a pedestal on a pedestal, I'm doing it not to find people who will accept my cult of personality but because ... I like placing things on pedestals and celebrating them. It's like ... take Sinister Sean. He is just a man, but I hope in this journal he is a demon, he is unliving, he is beyond life. I love making my friends more than human, less than human, I love placing them in the ranks of Bajoran Prophet where each person represents a voice of my own psyche. I mean who am I to write about their lives but what they bring to mine?
But this has to be done correctly. [info]dont_ask_me_why the person's true essence must never be erased or wiped in order to reflect my personality. She must retain a sense of difference from me, a sense of who she is independant of me, even though her actions often amplify thoughts of my own and are muted against my own subjective quirks. Does that make sense? I produce pedestals and symbols as much as my D'costan kin, but they must not be objects to ride my agenda upon but must be totems and shamans in my attempt to better myself. Does that make sense?

I have no defense for not being in school, except to ask if it's good enough that I'm learning Haskell and Walter Benjamin and trying to write like a composite of how I'd write if I was every other writer I've ever respected. I have no defense for being sedentary in Waterloo, except to note that I've helped with raves and play backgammon with weird cafe characters and an spreading the word of knitting and gender politics for contentious reasons that ideally benefit others. I don't think these hold up under the sheer awareness of what adventures I can have, what I can achieve and attain if only I reach out for it.
But at least maybe you won't find me vapid and/or a hazard to others?
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[info]gaelotek
Nov. 2nd, 2009 @ 01:23 pm Social Group For Aspies?
Tags:
Hello there,

I have been attending the University of Waterloo for some months now.  I am diagnosed at the high end of the autism spectrum, which, in short, means that I hold my friends to higher standards than most.  Despite meeting many people in my classes and residence, I have yet to meet one who is not a shocking example of alcoholic frat-boy/girl douchebaggery.  Please, is there any club or group on campus or in KW where I can meet others on the autistic spectrum?  It is the only way I'll ever socialise.  Girls are preferred but by no means necessary!
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[info]ranma_92, posting in [info]uwaterloo