And one more to go.

[silveradept]

To do tomorrow - drop off exam in box, check mailbox. Second, study for other exam. Third, well, third involves getting packed up a little bit more. Which is always an interesting prospect for me, because I don't want to pack too much too soon. At the same time, I need to pack all that I can, so that the moving thing goes smoothly. It'll be okay, really.

Played a game of Literati with annaonthemoon tonight, and she would have beaten me if not for managing to make a 31 point score, using some triple-word help in choice places. Most people will find that I probably look dangerous at these games, but I'm not very dangerous at all. The point being proven that on another match I accepted. I got thrashed. Badly. Definitely not very good at these at all.

South Carolina introduces a bill to ban sex toys. I still say that anytime someone invokes the obscenity precedent, I need to find a community that find those sorts of things to be obscene and sue. Might even win the case.

Demon Lemons. Along with the Devil's Avacado and the Guacamole of Doom, I think we're on a solid path to finding the Devil's own Fruitbasket.

Starbucks can be a place where you hear strange things. This particular gem, though describes a world where fascists protect abusers and party girls. What an interesting world we live in.

By the way, if you didn't already have more than enough reasons why to believe that Ritalin isn't necessarily a wonder-drug at all, apparently taking Ritalin might just cause hallucinations. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have my child screaming about bugs that aren't there. Fidgeting and attention span problems can be dealt wi--oooh, shiny!

Anyway. This are doing better on this front. All the things I was worried about have fallen into place and come out to my favor. I'm still waiting on one thing, but it might very well be that the person I'm supposed to talk to is out of the office. And might be out of the office for a while. So there's no major worries involved there. They'll call when they call (or e-mail) and that will be how it happens. Once again, wonderfully worthless worry wasted. Better though, to have it be wasted than warranted.Just need to, well, work it out.

Goals are an orienting device - they will help you proceed in the direction you wish to go. The enjoyment of the trip, though, is not the destination - that's a wholly different thing. Be sure to look around every once in a while to make sure that, you know, you see the scenery and the other interesting things around you. Remind me to look up and look around every now and then. Otherwise I'll barrel head-first into a tree I should have seen coming.

Bed now. Perhaps things make better sense in the morning. Plus, in the morning, there are things to do.

Comments

[sulcharae.livejournal.com]

pfah.
my dad's lemon tree grew loads of misshapen oversized lemons. it's caused by an otherwise harmless mite (see on the flower end of the lemon where it's kind of scarred? Those are where the mites started doing their work)
monstrous, tentacled things. Taste just as good, no problems with the insides (though they're often a little funny-shaped too, the juice is just fine)
I would suspect that this guy's tree will have a bunch more of them next growing season.

[reaverta.livejournal.com]

Ritalin is not a wonder-drug, nor was it ever meant to be one.

Nor, however, is it a bad drug.

Its mis-use is bad, but the drug itself, administered to those who need it (estimated at about 5% of those actually on it O.o) is very, very useful.

Kinda like Prozac, really.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

I never had bugs. I had delusions on occasion, but never bugs.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you may also want to look down, too. You carry a lot of good things in that boat. Use them.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) 'Their scapegoat-other could be you, it could be anyone.'

Rings bells. (Need to remind self: not every anecdote is a barbed dig at the current American administration. It just seems that way. *amusement*)

M) Your second-to-last paragraph: even better if you can remind yourself.
And be careful to keep your worry at reasonable levels. Adrenaline is fine, but cortizol, chronic stress, and that whole basket... much worse.

B) As long as everything works out fine, it doesn't matter. *shrugs* The end may never justify the means, but after the fact it at least excuses them.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Heh. Was a challenging game, at the very least. We'll have to play again :)

banning the sale of sex toys? So, t's still leagal to OWN them, just not have a business that sell them? Even so, I think I predicted this happening. Government alwready wants in our uterus, why not in the bedroom, too?

Glad things are falling into place for you. Don't forget to look down, too - don't want to trip over anything (or step on a short person!)

Now I have the theme to george of the jungle stuck in my head. (the cartoon version "george, george, george of the jungle, fast as he can be. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah watch out for that tree!"

Also, Pack! You don't want me decending on your house and packing for you, trust me. (although, I am a very efficient packer.)

Things always make sense in the AM.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

My lemon tree does this, too. (By "my", I mean the lemon tree growing outside my apartment.)

[silveradept]

Oh, fine, ruin my funny moment of wild, baseless speculation with your cold rationality.

Actually, kind of cool to know how it works. Thanks for the info.

[silveradept]

That makes sense. but in this particular age of "Raise my child? No thank you, I don't think I will, but you can be sure as hell I'll complain about the way you're doing it if you turn out anything less than the perfect child my child obviously is", that mis-use bit is the norm rather than the exception.

Kind of like Prozac, really.

[silveradept]

Yeah, but I have delusions (of grandeur) on a regular basis, and I never needed any drugs for that. Still, see above about societal trends as to why I'm rather annoyed that we know this particular facet at all.

[silveradept]

N - If the government didn't act in such a manner that those barbs would stick, then they wouldn't have this problem, now would they?

M - One of my failings, in a sense, is to have tunnel vision and get worried when it doesn't look like there's progress being made. So I have to remind myself gently to look around.

B - Appropriate. And accurate, too, probably to a degree that we don't really want to think about.

[silveradept]

Perhaps at some point - that second game I played, I lost by sixty points, and it was never really close.

Yes, quite legal to own - I suspect there's a precedent involved there that can't be gone after. And with as many gay marriage and sodomy laws still on the books (and other things like obscenity standards), the government has been very interested in the bedrooms of the populace.

Here Shep! Here Shep! Good doggie! (*elephant trumpet in the background*)

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I thought Shep was a sheep?

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Literati is just not enough like Scrabble for my taste. Two reasons: 1) Random letters rather than a fixed letter distribution totally ruins your ability to plan for the end game. 2) Dictionary.com is too forgiving a reference (it has ap, qi, both not allowed in US play) but lacks a few common Scrabble words (like mm, xu). If we consider international play, then dictionary.com is very lacking as a reference.

I do like how high-point letters don't drive the game though.

This, of course, doesn't mean I don't play it sometimes, it just means I wish I were playing Scrabble when I do.

[silveradept]

Ship is the sheep.

Shep is the doggie/elephant.

[silveradept]

Yeah. I tried to play it somewhat like Scrabble. I don't think it worked out to well for me, plug the letters I got kept trying to make words like "ZQMVBFG" that Calvin was so fond of.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

hehe whoops.

[silveradept]

Then, all I have to do is remember where I put my keys...

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

They're not delusions if they are aspirations.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Literati rewards high letter cycling moreso than Scrabble (Scrabble does too, don't get me wrong) but Literati is played such that the best move in any situation is almost always to use the most letters you can. Saving blanks, high-scoring letters, or keeping track of vowels to ease your endgame just doesn't do as much as it would in regulation Scrabble.

[silveradept]

Definitely not. Also, the board there feels relatively cramped compared to a Scrabble board, regardless of whether it actually is or not. Not much room for expansions that don't immediately give your opponenet room to find triple word scores, as I found out in the second game.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

M) *smiles*

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Exactly. *grins*

(...and I'm actually planning to go to that country. I must be crazy. Oh wait, of course: I already knew that. Oh well. *shrugs nonchalently*)

M) *nods...* It depends on what your goals are, really. In my case, for example, the journey can be pleasant in parts, but can be no replacement for the eventual goal--even though it's for what one can enjoy parts of durding the journey that one seeks the end.

(Memory--if you lose the memory of an experience, then there's no point in experiencing it, is there?)

N) I'd like to note that the experience actually rings bells in pre-life memories: the Triad, I think, on a Sunday (one's day off) feeling guilty about not doing anything productive in terms of enjoying themselves, and only replaying Halo--which, of course, if it made them happy was perfectly sufficient to be justified. Complicated.

B) *smiles crookedly*

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

It's not smaller. The triple word scores are much easier to access though.

[silveradept]

That could be it, as well. I kept giving my opponent chances to use them without capturing any for myself, so it's no wonder I got thrashed on that game.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

M) Do you play Go?

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

you forgot about Neil Gaiman's demonic salsa. :D

[silveradept]

Not well. I know the rules, I understand the objective, but I have never played a full game in my life.

[silveradept]

I don't know if I ever knew about it.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

M) If you wanted to, do you know how to play online?

[silveradept]

Once upon a time, perhaps, I knew a place where I could play on-line, but I do not remember it. Not to mention, I'm not sure I have the patience to lose a thousand games before winning one.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. Things do seem to be spinning further away from sense don't they?

[silveradept]

Things never really appeared to be making much sense, especially for the last few years or so.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

I didn't say they made sense, I said they were getting even further from it. They left sense a long time ago and now just seem pleased to leave it in the dust.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

what's go?

[silveradept]

Go is a game played with white and black stones on a lined 18x18 grid. The stones are placed at the intersections of the lines, and the object is to capture as much territory of the board as is possible.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

M) Hm. There's the Kiseido Go Server, as well as various clients.

In any case, one doesn't learn as much from playing go on one's own as one might: it's better (or at least easier) to learn from a teacher or book(s) that already have the knowledge that you need to incorporate into yourself.

N) (I'd like to take this opportunity to urge you to read and/or watch Hikaru no Go.)

[reaverta.livejournal.com]

I just feel sorry for those in the minority, marginalised because of the (generally accepted) misuse by the majority.

[silveradept]

It's a social stigma in the first place to have to take drugs to control things. Since you're not normal to begin with, the drugs make you behave normally, but people are still going to look down on you because you have to take drugs. Make sense? (At least, I can see this as a potential scenario)

Those people who actually do need it and use it properly may already feel marginalizied. They're probably just wishing that these abusers would go away and find some other drug to get high off of.

[silveradept]

Learning from a teacher would be a most helpful thing, yes. As for Hikaru No Go, it's on my list of things to at least watch an episode or two of to see if I like it.

[reaverta.livejournal.com]

That was rather my point, yes...

But the public image and reputation for "Oh, you take X? It's all just a big scam, you know - proper parenting fixes it anyway" doesn't help, is mostly my point.

[silveradept]

Ah, then we've been arguing for the same thing, mostly. I'm not going to say that proper parenting fixes all problems - science tells us otherwise. I just want, like you do, for proper parenting to have happened, legitimizing the necessity of the X because the other options that could have solved it didn't.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

...i just got this comment.