I just made WHALEBOAT in my game against, well, I don’t wanna name drop.

:cough ReallyIDoButIDon’tThinkIt’dBeAppropriate cough:

He took a nap.

The long answer is a little more personal:

About two months ago I started taking medication to help me deal with anxiety issues that had been escalating for years. They were bad enough that they were interfering with my ability to take care of the business of being an adult.

On the good side, these pills seem to be helping a great deal. On the down side, I’m used to be scared/anxious/worked up by certain things, so I still deal with them via avoidance… as long as I don’t consciously consider what I am doing. Another down side is that I have great difficulty sitting down and staying awake. As long as I am physically active, I’m ready to play. But when I sit down to read or write, I start to pass out.

Now, finally, it seems that I am starting to acclimate to the meds. I am beginning to feel an itch to record my thoughts. I’m actually sitting here typing away instead of take a nap!

w00t!

(This took a few minutes  to write and I’m starting to drift off now. So, I’m not quite right yet, but this is so very much better than it has been.)

Portable Blue Laser from Wicked Lasers – Spyder III Pro Arctic Series.

For only $200 I could get this useless laser. Not useless because it doesn’t do anything. Useless because it is so freaking powerful, it is too dangerous to as anything less than a weapon. Even the reflected and diffused radiation is too powerful. I couldn’t even play with the cat with it!

I’m still trying to decide if this means I -don’t- want one.

Yeah, it was pretty hard to ignore that fact that she was really sad.

Which is what made it fun, of course. I could ignore just about anything, well, except whining of course, so I ignored Ruth’s obvious sadness and went on with my day. Oblivion is joy, my father had taught me.

I wasn’t quite so joyous when I found Ruth hanging over the balconey when I returned home. The way she dangled did bad things to my tummy and I felt a little like I did after eating that cactus plant that she had given me for my birthday.

“You look silly” she said.

I looked up at her crazy-tilted head and into her protruding dull eyes. No body home there.

“Hey, cunt burgler, stop trying to look up my skirt and help me get down,” Ruth said.

I took a step back and looked all around me.

“This isn’t funny,” I said.

“You’d not know funny if it killed you. Wait… that sounds like a FUNNY IDEA,” she yelled. Her voice echoed dryly around the dead space.

Her mouth didn’t move. Oh crap. I knew what this meant. I was stuck with her forever now.

Well, maybe not. I could move. Ruth might be stuck here with the house. That would be a good way to get rid of her. I mean, really, who wants to share living space with a ghost? They’re pretty useless for anything except talking and I’m not big on that one.

I turned, my bag dangling over my shoulder, and walked away. Walked away and returned to joy.

I’ve noticed lately that I am becoming increasingly harsh and critical of endings. With that in mind, I think that P.C. Haring did a pretty good job here. I felt that I got the story that was promised and that I had a good wrap up. I would have liked the story to stop just a little bit earlier, before the graveyard visit, but I can see how that might have been necessary to tie things up.

I am coming to the conclusion that listening to a podionovel (full-cast or not) is simply not the same thing as reading a book. The experience is too different. Both are forms of storytelling, but no one has ever (well, no one reasonable) said that a comic book and a movie are the same thing because both are visual storytelling. That said, I have no idea if P.C. did a good job of -writing- the story and, that said, it has no bearing because he did an excellent job of TELLING the story through his choice of words, his choice of voice actors (and their excellent work), and through his use of special effects and music.

I’d recommend Cybrosis to people interested in audio fiction and to people who like light-weight near future action adventures. Despite the cybernetics angle, I really don’t think it is fair to weigh Cybrosis down by calling it a cyberpunk. It just isn’t punk of any variety, and that’s just fine. It is what it is, and that, at least in my opinion, is good.

I enjoyed reading about Clary and her friends. I was impressed with the way the author took away everything about 3/4 of the way into the story. But I didn’t like the ending. No, that’s too strong really. I didn’t connect to the ending. It just felt different somehow and I didn’t get drawn in like I had been in earlier sections.

So the reading was enjoyable.

The more I think about it the book, after the fact, the less impressed I find myself.

Take the main character’s name. Clary. What is the author’s name? Cassandra CLARE. So… great. Is this a Mary Sue of epic proportions? And if so, what does that say about the surprise reveal at the end of the book? Ugh.

Then there is the magic system. The Shadowhunters prepare themselves for battle by drawing runes and sigils on their body with a magic stick. As they use the powers, the tattoos disappear, leaving only traces of silvery scars. That sounds really cool, as it involves both tattoo magic and runic magic. Except, of course, it isn’t developed in any real way. At one point Clary learns two, maybe three runes. And that’s incidental, accidental, and of only passing importance (apparently.) I didn’t think of it while I was reading, but now that I am done, I find myself disappointed in a lost opportunity.

There are other examples too. When her mom gets abducted early in the book, I never really felt that Clary was upset. In fact, I think she was more damaged by the family friend abandoning her than she was by the disappearance of her mum.

Because writers get better by writing more, I expect the next book will be better. The characters were pretty fun and the world is interesting. It just needs a big dose of depth splashed all over it and the next book will be a lot more engrossing.

…

Okay, enough with the dancing.

Remember Me: Edward meets Tess. It’s sparkly vampire versus alien princess in this impossible romantic comedy. Er. I’m sorry, I was so busy imagining the vamp vs alien angle that I utterly failed to note what the actual movie is supposed to be about.

Letters to Juliet: The trailer is the sweetest 1 minute love story, bringing a quick tear to my eye and leaving me with no need to waste time watching the expanded version. This one is complete. Something about a girl who steals a 40 year old love letter stashed inside a wall of love letters and decides to answer it. That part makes no damn sense, but that’s okay cuz it is just setup for her grabbing her oh-so-reliable best bud to track down first the old lady who wrote the letter and then her former paramour. The trailer gives everything away, so I won’t.

BandSlam: I laughed at the trailer, but I’m not sure the movie will be more than simply uncomfortable. Take geeks, grrl rockers, a band contest, bad lipsynced autotuned music, add a twist of longing and a double handful of shame. It’s a sure fire with the tweens and an auto miss with their elders.

AstroBoy: So much geek love for this thing. It it’ll have to make it on the story and it looks a bit overly simplistic in that department. A robot boy who saves the day from robots. Featuring the evil army general who wants to steal the robot boy to make robots. See what I mean? It could be a Wall-E, but seriously, how likely is that?

Please stop failing. You have my account information. It works. Please use it and stop charging me for your system’s failure. Thank you.

And on a different note, you have my email address. Why are you sending me pieces of paper that take literally days to travel to tell me that you were unable to access my checking account again? This could have been resolved days ago if you had used the email address that you have on record for me!

No love,
Scry

I need a special word for this sort of nose in the air bullshit.

Well, anyway, I have a special rage for that sort of idiot. So I figured I’d pass on them until they gave up on their stupid ways.

And then the end of BSG happened. I was going to buy BSG on DVD and share it with people who hadn’t caught it on TV. But the ending invalidated the show, so … Well, lesson learned. So I really wasn’t going to buy the Lost DVDs and try to catch up if it was going to pull a BSG at the end.

Earlier today I commented:

If I were a betting man, I’d bet the LOST backlash will make BSG’s look tame for a month before everyone starts to forget all about it. A sort of guilt will settle in and people will claim that they were never really into it.

Then we can get back to complaining about how badly the third season of Roswell ruined that show. XP

Well. Lost is over now. And from the reaction on Twitter… it’s pretty much the same blah blah blah as when the BSG finale happened. Some people loved the end of BSG. They said things like

@tvmadman The #Lost finale was not about mythology, not about answers, but about the characters and the connections we invested in. Thank you.

That is a bullshit cop out by someone who wants to believe they didn’t just get shafted after 6 years. Sucks to be them.

Some people really hated the Lost finale.

@pablod Ok, new rule: if you’re putting together a pitch for an sfnal multi-season plot-driven drama, FIGURE THE END OUT FROM THE FUCKING BEGINNING.

Mostly, there was a lot of confusion.

@fancyfembot Ok wtf just happened here? I don’t think I understand. You promised us!!!! #lost

@Annaleen um did Ron Moore write this episode of #Lost?

@jonfmerz Lost season finale…um…okay, but what about-? and what about-? >sigh< guess I'll wait for the Wikipedia entry, lol...

@oldbie Huh. Not sure how I feel yet, but I think I liked it. #lost

@BerinKinsman My major gripe about Lost is that it played its secrets SO close to the vest that when they were finally revealed I’d stopped caring.

@briandgregory My reaction to #lost finale: fuck. That is all.

There were even the rare few who were genuinely pleased with the ending to Lost.

@breakall LOST finished really strong. Reminded me a bit of the TNG series finale.

@ctumaven Ok, so LOST. That is a pretty damn good way to end a great series.

@acedtect Damn. Well done Lost.

And someone -really- liked the end. I’m afraid to say anymore though. (JOKING!)

@JustinMacumber To all those who think the LOST finale means the entire series was about people in limbo – you’re idiots and need to pay attention more.

I think that I was probably wrong. I overstated the reaction, and I’m really surprised by that. I had thought that being popular with the mundanes (and not just the geek crowd) would ramp up the vitriol. Instead, maybe, it has had the opposite effect. Maybe our obsessive natures aren’t just an amusing part of a diagram.

All in all, I think the following two tweets sum it up best.

@ghostfinder So people either loved the Lost finale or hated it, and it either explained everything or explained nothing.

@Jollybgood I think people will look back in a few years and wonder what all the fuss about LOST was. Sort of the way we look back on Twin Peaks.

Yeah. What was the fuss with Twin Peaks anyhow?

John McCain has a lot to answer for, and I predict his place in political history will be to remembered as John the Baptist to Palin’s twisted conservative Jesus.

I need happy thoughts now. Somebody share some happy thoughts. A LOLcat maybe? Please?

You should be.

After Samsung complained, the paper ran two clarifications, one of which Breen says he was told by editors was written by Samsung.

Take heed. One sentence paragraphs are better than two sentence paragraphs. No matter how confusing the single sentence may be. And if you are going to Korea, remember that you can be sued for damaging someone’s reputation, even if what you’ve said is the purest truth. Just pretend you are an actor talking about your coworkers on a film. Everyone is the best, the greatest, the most awesome.

—

A new article on MIT’s Technology Review talks about how “Metamaterials allow the creation of adjacent spaces with their own laws of physics, just like the multiverse.” I have no idea what the heck that means, but it sounds bloody awesome. (Yes, I read the rest of the article. No, I have no idea what the heck it means.)

In symmetries of these spaces depend on the dimensions and the way they are compactified and this in turn determines the laws of physics in these regions.

Compactified! How cool is that?

—

Nathan Bransford writes cogently about author’s voice. And I’ve cemented in my superstitious mind that talking about voice is as useful as the dark matter nonsense. I don’t even care if it fits all the evidence. It’s all a bunch of yammering that gets nothing done.

—

Yes, I am having a bad pain day. Why do you ask? Oh, because I’m being a didactic idiot again? Ahhhh. You may have a good point. Perhaps I should just shut up when I feel like this.

(Some of you may with some justification point to Cory Doctorow and say, “how come he puts out free ebooks without DRM?” To which, I’m afraid to say the answer is that Cory is a Special Snowflake with EFF superpowers and New York Times Bestseller mojo which make him immune to the normal laws of man and nature. The rest of us still get to pay cash.)

The entire post is well worth reading, though (as usual), the comments start to get my blood boiling fairly quickly. See Rules of the Internet #1.

so when I dropped Rom off at school today, he realized his apple had escaped his backpack. He was almost in tears…he never zips the small compartment. I felt bad and offered him my cup of pears. He declined and proceeded to get out of the car. I said ” I love you, don’t let this ruin your day”, he sarcastically smiled and gave me a thumbs up. We’ve done a great job teaching him sarcasm…

And she’s right. We have done a great job. He’s going to be a great guy when he finishes growing up.

BrainWyrms 013: RE-Vengeance

This one has a content warning for discussion of things that may be disturbing to some, language, and blatant spoilers throughout. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNEDEDED!!

The new Doctor Who, Vampire Diaries, The Informant, April Fools Day, The Hugo awards, and the second part of Park’s Vengeance Trilogy; Oldboy.

Promo: Computer King

Promo: Merciless Storytellers

Promo: WanderRadio… coming soon!

Promo: The 2010 Parsec Awards nominations are open until June 1, 2010!

Music: Jeremy Williams “Slither”

Music: Balloon Girl by Hungry Lucy

[Tao]
13. Self

[Outro]
Intro and Outro music provided by The Outsyder via Podsafeaudio.

If you have a comment or would like to leave some feedback, you can do so on the blog postings at BrainWyrms.com, via email scry@brainwyrms.com or you can call and leave a voicemail at 206.203.0680.

BrainWyrms by Nomad Scry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

So this morning I collected my paperwork and went down to City Hall to pay off my overdue excise tax. Because I hadn’t paid it on time I had received a notice from the 17th stating that I had a warrant that would prevent me from renewing my license or registration. Over all, the fines for being late were less than I expected and I walked right and walked right back out.

I had high hopes for the rest of the day.

I arrived at the RMV (Registry of Motor Vehicles) as they opened. There were no parking spots left, so I circled around the town (well, half the town) and re-arrived ten minutes later. The first few people had been serviced and were leaving, so I snagged a parking spot and sauntered in.

Yeah, that’s when I started having problems. While I tried to figure out which paperwork I needed to fill out for the registration renewal, three more people came in… for registration renewals. I peeked at one’s hand and he had a prefilled form. I guess he’d recieved it in the mail. Maybe I hadn’t because of the hold. I decided to just take a ticket and hope that the original registration was paperwork enough.

An hour later I finally got to find out that I was correct. Everything they needed was on the registration. Sadly they weren’t able to take my money because I still had a hold.  The lady was very nice and suggested I just call them to get it cleared up.

Have I mentioned that I am irrationally afraid of telephones? Yeah… it’s stupid and ridiculous and miserable.

I have a solution though. An enabler.

I picked up my wife from work and got her to call for me. The tax collector was confused. There was no hold on my name. She had to call her supervisor. Turns out that the unpaid excise tax was from 2008, back when I had a Scion xA and a totally different last name. The last name change is why nothing new was showing up. And I lost the xA in a car crash, right about the time the excise tax was due. It’s no good excuse, but I completely forgot that I owed anything. I blocked it right out of my head.

We drove to the bank and I took out the money that had been intended for paying cell phone bills. Then we paid the nice tax collector and she said it would take 20 minutes for the hold to clear. By now it was past noon and, in a shocking twist of fate, the RMV was more than twice as crowded as when I had left at 10am. There were cars parked in the street, over the curb, around the back, all over the place.

I came home and renewed the registration online. That was painless.

The lesson to be learned here is take care of business when you have to. Even better, take care of it before you absolutely have to. And I’ll bet you $5 that I won’t follow my own advice.

First off this is not only a vampire novel, it is published under a romance imprint. So, yeah, there is some fairly graphic sex here. Thankfully, it has NOTHING on the sheer amount of kink in a current Anita Blake novel. What does make me a bit nervous is this is the first in a series, so I have a feeling that it is going to get extremely out of hand really quickly. I enjoyed this entry, but I doubt I am going to seek out the next volume.

Secondly, this is the first book that I’ve read in eBook form. A few months back Tor released a series of no cost downloads of some of their books to readers who had signed up for their newsletter, and this is the first one that I’ve completed. I’ve spent a few hours of face-to-face time lamenting how much it hurts my eyes to read any significant amount of text on a screen, so it was refreshing to me how nice this was on me in a physical way. Maybe it had more to do with the small screen size (on my AT&T Tilt) and maybe it was the LCD vs CRT, but I read the whole thing in a fairly short period of time with no mechanical difficulties.

Resident Evil: Afterlife – Appears to be Matrix Revolution 3D. I suspect that the story is invisible.

The Expendables – Has everyone and their awesome uncle too. With this cast, there is no damn way it can live up to my 5* expectations now. And besides, who would waste time on a script or script writer when you’ve got Bruce Willis, the Governator, Stallone, Statham, JET LI (!!!), Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Brittany Murphy, Danny Trejo, and Charisma Carpenter? I will probably end up liking this one about as little as I did Pulp Fiction.

Toy Story 3 – Maybe I’m overreacting to Ken. Maybe I’m under reacting. Either way, I’m utterly unexcited by the next Toy Story, and that is a crying shame.

Step Up 3D – … Uh… Huh… ? As usual, the dance scenes are mesmerizing (if you’re into that kinda thing) and the story is in the way, but 3D? Really? Isn’t the boob shake in Soul Caliber 3 enough for you?

The Other Guys – A buddy cop movie where The Rock & Samuel L Jackson are the bad-ass cops, and Will Ferrell & Mark Walhberg are the other cops. This is one that I’ll want to see.

Dinner for Schmucks – Uh. [o.O] Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd. Apparently the higher ups at Rudd’s company throw a party where they bring dorks to make fun of. Carrell is Rudd’s dork. Wacky wacky and I can’t tell if Jade will want to see this one or not. I’ll watch it if she does.

Grown Ups – Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, David Spade and Kevin James. I have no personal interest, mostly because it is a comedy and my sense of humor was stillborn, but I’ll watch it with Jade because it has Adam Sandler and Kevin James.

After.Life – I can’t tell, from the previews, if this is a simple tits and screams (in which case I’ll pass) or if the movie is a dark fantasy about the half dead. It does look to be lusciously shot, which sadly probably means it is the kind of movie I’ll forgo.

Splice – Creature horror isn’t usually to my taste and the only thing I found interesting here was David Hewlett.

Sex in the City 2 – Guess what I thought?

I think my eyebrows are stuck to my hair line now.

The A Team – Hahahaha! Okay, that was ridiculous. I’m in.

Knight and Day – Tom Cruise (he who is detestible) and Cameron Diaz in a bizarre spy flick. Thing. I’m sold on it today, but I have a feeling (based on my past history) that I am going to either forget all about this movie for ever and ever, or I simply won’t care when it actually hits. The crazy part does make it more interesting though…

Salt – I’d actually seen the trailer before and I already know that I am going to see and enjoy this movie. I wish it were out on DVD already so that I could watch it now. Angelina Jolie as a maybe sleeper super agent who isn’t quite awake yet? I have a feeling that like Jumper and Wanted and even Iron Man, I am going to like Salt a lot more in hindsight than I did when watching it in the first place. (Bonus points for their twitter account being in the damn trailer!)

Solitary Man – I’ve learned that I don’t like pretty much anything with Danny Devito in it. The same goes for the last dozen years with Michael Douglas. This movie has both. Er, what is it about? It’s about some idiot who has it all and loses it. Probably by being a pathetic prick. Which is apparently lovable, because he takes a time out from trying to bang babies to teach a loser how to get chicks too. Or something. If this is supposed to be a “feel good” movie, then I’d want to strangle myself afterwards.

And there were a few other trailers that I saw before I decided to keep track.

• Rule #1: Do not read comments.

Comments will make you lose your mind, grow an ulcer, and then explode. Do not read comments.

• Rule #2: There is no such thing as privacy.

Anything you say or do (or do not) can and will be used against you. Probably in comments somewhere.

• Rule #3: There is no such thing as security.

Get over it. And see rule #2.

• Rule #4: Humans are gross animals.

If you are not prepared to deal with the foul and disgusting and stupid, get off the net planet.

edit 5-6-2010: Rule #4 expanded.

Since then, it has grown to such a point that I almost think my epic sized pile of podcasts consumed is too much of a mess to even be useful for that original purpuse any longer. Thank goodness I started using the tags half way through. They are probably the only thing that salvages this mess.

I’ve broken a PSP, an iPod, a Zune, a Sansa Clip, several heavily worn iRivers, all while listening to podcasts that were (mostly) recorded here. I’ve met a lot of the actual podcasters because of the link backs from my lists. And I’ve even got a half way finished review series of podcatching software, all because of doing my podsuming list.

But, at least for now, this is over and done with. I am getting bored with it, and as my name indicates, I do tend to wander around. The main reason, though, is that I have been putting too much emphasis on making sure that my list is done, that my list is complete, and so I have been getting sloppy and careless about getting other parts of my life done.

I won’t be getting a raise at work this year and that is 95% because of my tardiness due to dawdling over my podsuming list each day instead of getting my butt in gear and going to work. I’m sure that you can agree with me that my priorities were getting … skewed, to put it nicely.

And maybe, just maybe, I can find something better to put that 30-45 minutes a day towards.

57:32 | 60:28 | 55:18 | 5:10 hrs.

58:12 | 63:51 | 56:27 | 7:24 hrs

1. Buzz Out Loud Podcast 1195: Five years. You’re welcome, tech world. – Epic. Period.
2. Reading at the Speed of Sound Podcast, Episode 2: Audiobook Review of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
3. blizzard – podictionary 145
4. Return to Northmoor Meta Episode 4 – Player Roundtable, Part I
5. Return to Northmoor Meta Episode 4.5 – Player Roundtable, Part II
6. Psychology 1107 (Winter 2010) – Disorders 02
7. CMP SP18 – The St Paddy’s Day Special
8. Common Sense Show 172 – The Great Texas History Flap
9. DRS Episode 121 – So You Want To Podcast
10. DarkCompass 406 We all lose
11. DarkCompass 408 Work Hard Play Hard
12. Episode 6.5 – Spherical Tomi: A Novel of Despair
13. rifle – podictionary 1119
14. pen – podictionary 150
15. TTM Episode 38 – Geek Friendly
16. HP Podcraft Episode 35 – Under the Pyramids – Part 1
17. ISBW #143 – Cynicism / Don Vaughn Interview
18. The Road to Magical Happy Greatness Episode 10: Whiny Indie Authors
19. Tor.com Story Podcast 014 – “The Next Invasion” by Robert Reed
20. ChinesePod Newbie – She went out
21. AnomalyOn Waffles Of Monty Python and the Holy Grail
22. History of Rome 088- A Day in the Life
23. Psychology 1107 (Winter 2010) – Therapy 01
24. FourCast Podcast More toasters, less paper – Ep. 23
25. East Meets West 199 – Happy birthday healthcare
26. 1UP.com – 4 Guys 1UP – 03/19/2010
27. Into The Dark Episode 055 – 5 Guys Who Never Die
28. Slice of SciFi #256: VoiceMail Show
29. Slice of SciFi #257: An Interview With Kevin Grazier, Scientific Adviser for “BSG” and “Eureka”
30. No BS Podcast #134: W.T.F.
31. Quirks & Quarks – 2010-03-20
32. Writing Excuses 4.11: Brainstorming From Headlines
33. Cybrosis – Episode 12
34. Tekdiff 3/19/10 – Audience Participation
35. Get Published Episode 27 – Publisher/Author/Editor Carol Hightshoe Talks Writing
36. 852: Lou Anders, Pyr at 5, Round 2
37. Tangential Convergence Episode 22 – We’re here, like exactly right here…
38. LILITH’S LOVE Episode #8 – March 19, 2010

66:13 |  84:36 | 58:51 | 25:45 hrs of podcasts consumed.

This one has a content warning for discussion of things that may be disturbing to some, language, and blatant spoilers throughout. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNEDEDED!!

Promo: All Games Considered presents the RPG Buffet Super Duper [...] D&D Campaign

Talking about a baby, a PS3, Netflix streaming, Shiri, and the Vengeance trilogy by Chan Wook Park.

Music: Jeremy Williams “DoBeDo”

Music: Jet Pin Army “Over and Over”

[Tao]
12. Substance

[Outro]
Intro and Outro music provided by The Outsyder via Podsafeaudio.

If you have a comment or would like to leave some feedback, you can do so on the blog postings at BrainWyrms.com, via email scry@brainwyrms.com or you can call and leave a voicemail at 206.203.0680.

BrainWyrms by Nomad Scry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

62:42 | 71:56 | 66:13 | 5:43 hours of podcasts consumed today.

62:57 | 68:00 | 62:42 | 5:18 hrs

74:44 | 62:57 | 11:47 hrs.

63:55 | 67:40 | 60:45 | 6:55 hrs podsumed. That’s 45+ hours o’er the past week.

66:58 | 70:39 | 63:55 | 6:44 hrs of podcasts consumed

68:58 | 76:45 | 66:43 | 10:02 hours

69:59 | 91:23 | 69:42 | 21:41 hours of podcasts consumed.

1. Buzz Out Loud Podcast 1186: Free chickens for all
2. DRS Episode 119 – John Mierau Interview
3. Conspiracy Skeptic Unplugged Episode 13 – North Korean Conspiracies with Stafford Lumsdem
4. MOZOMEDIA MUSIC PODCAST – EPISODE 9
5. Milk Carton TV: Episode Zero
6. Episode 9: Thin Mint Tricks, Creative Commons, and Paying Authors
7. chauvinist – podictionary 1067
8. slave – podictionary 143
9. Psychology 1107 (Winter 2010) – Personality 02
10. Newbie – How’s the weather?
11. Biology and Psychology 3506 (Winter 2010) – LSD and Marijuana
12. FourCast It’s war! Or Not! – Ep. 21
13. Jack Mangans Deadpan #158: The Difficult Ones
14. Unshow MMMMMM 49

73:35 | 78:11 | 69:59 | 8:12 hrs of podsuming today. I should pat myself on the back or smack myself around.

73:17 | 79:19 | 73:35 | 5:44 hrs

78:17 | 83:02 | 76:51 | 6:11 hrs.

76:52 | 86:16 | 78:17 | 8 hours of podsumery. I am going to have to do a purge again. I cannot keep up. I don’t like having to choose who to keep and who to cut.

75:21 | 79:47 | 74:44 | 5:03 hrs.

1. Buzz Out Loud Podcast 1181: ACTA: it’s bad for the brand
2. Psychology 3256 (Winter 2010) – Factorial ANOVA 01
3. Psychology 4007 (Winter 2010) – The Gender Similarity Hypothesis
4. Psychology 1107 (Winter 2010) – Stress and Health 02
5. Biology and Psychology 3506 (Winter 2010) – Antipsychotics

74:44 | 79:06 | 74:10 | 4:54 hrs.

1. Buzz Out Loud Podcast 1182: Where we’re going, we don’t need rails
2. The Empress Sword 05
3. Out of the Coffin Episode #56 – Interview with Gail Carriger author of SOULLESS
4. The History of Rome 015a- The Second Samnite War
5. HP Podcraft Episode 32 – The Rats in the Walls: Part 2
6. Psychology 3256 (Winter 2010) – Factorial ANOVA 02 – That noise? That is the sound of my head spinning.
7. Agony 837: A 2010 Interview with Dan Simmons
8. DarkCompass 405 The Banana Method
9. ChinesePod Newbie – Please let me through!
10. storm – podictionary 141

I messed up my numbers for today – oops.

1. Buzz Out Loud Podcast 1183: War and peace on the Internet
2. SciAm Ice, Ice, Baby: The Physics of Curling – Yeah… I listened several times and I still don’t understand the physics of curling. Maybe with GoToMyPC I would have been able to see it better.
3. FourCast More power for the AI! – Ep. 20
4. 1UP.com – 4 Guys 1UP – 02/26/2010
5. Into the Dark Episode 053 – Lock, Stock, & Two Smokin’ Aces – I haven’t seen Lock Stock or Aces 2, but I enjoyed Aces 1. I have no idea what the story was, which didn’t really matter to me because this was a purely visual joy ride. I really want to see Lock Stock now.
6. ISBW ISBW #142 – Feedback!
7. Slice of Sci Fi #254: An Interview With Ted Raimi of “Legend of the Seeker”
8. Slice of SciFi #253: VoiceMail Show
9. Cover to Cover #397B: Books and . . .
10. Quirks & Quarks 2010-02-27 – I was putting the groceries away and had to keep rewinding the Spiderman section. Very cool, if I did in fact understand what was said.
11. Cybrosis – Episode 09
12. The Good Parts, Episode 15: Entitlement
13. Beware the Hairy Mango Episode 27 – Jim Comes Out
14. Dead Mech Episode 12
15. The Empress Sword Episode 06 – Magic Sword – I had a feeling…
16. Tor.com Story Podcast #11: “Down on the Farm” by Charles Stross – I’ve heard this one before… somewhere. It was a somewhat better recording, though nothing against the read itself. Either way, it was and is a good tale.
17. leech – podictionary 1109

72:33 | 87:39 | 76:52 | 10:47

• Begin it with a letter or a number
• Include at least one letter and one number
• If you use your e-mail address, you don’t need to include a number
• 5 to 50 characters and no spaces

Really? My username HAS to have a number?

Tomorrow, when I come back to USE this account I won’t remember my username.

Oh! I know, I’ll just write it down on this piece of paper with all of my passwords that are also too convoluted to remember. Because, like a secret, it isn’t secure until NO ONE knows.

Frogs.

Promo: Anomaly

Clip: Zoe Winters from The Road to Magical Happy Greatness

Clip: Dave Brodbeck from Dave’s Psych Classes

Clip: NPH from Dr. Horrible

Music: Darling Parade [edit: The song is titled "Bells Are Ringing"]

Shout Out to Touching The Monolith

Feedback from:

• Lord Wardious
• WanderWolf of WanderRadio

[Tao]

11. Tools
Thirty spokes meet at a nave;
Because of the hole we may use the wheel.
Clay is moulded into a vessel;
Because of the hollow we may use the cup.
Walls are built around a hearth;
Because of the doors we may use the house.
Thus tools come from what exists,
But use from what does not.

[Outro]
If you have a comment or would like to leave some feedback, you can do so on the blog postings at BrainWyrms.com, via email scry@brainwyrms.com or you can call and leave a voicemail at 206.203.0680.

BrainWyrms by Nomad Scry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Intro and Outro music provided by The Outsyder via Podsafeaudio.

72:23 | 80:53 | 75:21 | 5:32 hrs.

66:18 | 81:21 | 72:23 | 8:58 hrs

71:09 | 66:18 | 4:51 hrs.

the long and grinding road

More on the weird billing, and costs of healthcare

Just to be clear: He has insurance. And is probably going to be driven penniless by the cost of his treatment. Got that? Okay… now my opinion.

The entire health care issue, in my overly something opinion, can boil down to this: is every human life worth fighting for, to the bitter end… or do we value some lives over others, value some lives longer than others?

And by we, I mean literally we, we the people, the ones who live and breathe and suffer and die. All of us.

Do we value life so much that we will pay for radical treatments, experimental drugs (and the research that goes before), and optional surgeries? Or do we think that some lives are worth more than others?

This has all sorts of implications from abortion policies to euthanasia. Too many implications for my mind to do more than boggle over right now.

If some lives are worth more, how do we sort it out? Who is worth more? Why? Maybe the ability to pay for insurance IS our sorting mechanism.

If that is the case, the current state of insurance seems to me to indicate that the most valuable lives are the ones that are HEALTHY and insured (i.e. paying into the system.)

That strikes me as a really piss poor way of choosing who is valuable enough to save.

-=-=-=-

On a different angle, the idea that public for-profit companies run health care insurance is foolish. The goals and mottoes of the company and customers are in direct conflict with each other. The company’s goal is to increase profit. Which simply means taking in more money while paying out less. The customer’s goal is to pay a small amount frequently so that in the event of a situation (or emergency) there is not a large amount to pay out.

Okay, that’s probably not quite accurate. The customer really wants to put in a little bit frequently in order to stay healthy. The customer doesn’t really want insurance so much as steady and covered care. If the ends to the means is through insurance, so be it.

I spent years buying into the idea that the government was the scary evil thing. Since the government is people and we are the people, well, it is still a scary thing. Scary and stupid rather than scary and evil. But now I’m buying into the idea that corporations are evil. When the ultimate goal, for which everything else is sacrificial, is to increase profit every quarter, then there is NO ROOM FOR GOOD. In the same way that the absence of light is dark, the absence of good is evil.

So yeah, I trust the tea party idiots more than I trust any insurance company. And those tea party yipyaps probably want to kill me because I LOOK different.

60:36 | 67:05 | 61:50 | 5:15 hrs.

60:52 | 65:36 | 60:36 | 5:00 hrs. How neat is that?