The Mirrored Road into the Interior

Blueberry Colada

2009-05-31T15:30:00.000-07:00

Well, my new food and drink blog has launched. I'll be posting a recipe on Mondays, a cocktail on Wednesdays, and a restaurant review on Fridays. In between, I'll have any posts on other (usually supporting) subjects. It is at http://blueberrycolada.wordpress.com/ .

new blog a commin'

2009-05-27T05:42:00.000-07:00

Well, in the tradition of spreading my resources thinner, I'm a starting a new blog. (This would be the one I mentioned a while back) there were two yeas and one nay, and really, unless the nay sayers are unanimous, it is probably best to just ignore them. More on this when I've made my first post over there.

meta blog

2009-05-20T05:41:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have friended me on facebook may know that I've been posting assorted drink recipes there. I've been playing with the idea of doing writer's reviews of various restaurants around bloomington as well.(As in, how good of a place are they to go and write.

I'm trying to decide if I should fold all of that into this blog or to start a focused blog for assorted food based subjects.

2009-05-16T22:06:00.000-07:00

I bought ~~The da Vinci Code~~ Foucault's Pendulum and Kill Dr. Lucky today!

Been playing with mixing drinks again, here's the best of the current set.

1 part 4X Berry Blast Koolaid mix (1 packet of mix in 2 cups of water.
2 parts simple syrup
2 parts pulpy orange juice
2 parts coconut rum.
Ice

Put the Ice in a class.
Add rum
Pour Orange juice over the ice (or a spoon) so it floats on the rum.
Mix the koolaid and the simple syrup and pour that over the ice cubes or a spoon.
Swirl to taste.

Pantree Owl Concert 3

2009-05-15T18:29:00.001-07:00

`Pantree Owl only started 2/3rds an hour late this time. An improvement... (I'm writing this after the concert. I transcribed from my notes my post about the one a couple of weeks ago during the concert.
Setup started 20 minutes late again, though they were quite early this time, at least compared to the revised starting time. Of course I rushed across town to get here for the original time, so I was even more quite early. (I'll probably post my second review later tonight, some time after I finish my third review. (so when I twit them about lateness, grain of salt, though I don't announce the times of my reviews, nor do I, as a reviewer, actually have an audience. This would be the Eric Burns difference between a hobby and something more. Keep in mind, regardless of this one major flaw, they kick ass.)

Okay, 2 members are gone at the moment, the two strings players, so it is just drums, keyboard, and Papania's voice. I still want to hire them to play my front room in my mansion some day. (Plus strings would be better,but not necessary.)

Started very late again. (A friend of mine defended them because of how young they are, but really, no. My little brother's band was made up of kids in highschool, and was always there on time at the very least.)

That said.
Almost as awesome as last time. Still worth my while to have rushed across town to wait extra long for them to play.

There is this piece where they record some sounds created with items they collect in the venue (a pair of beer bottles and some other stuff) that is beautiful. (i'll find a name for it eventually.)

pantree owl 2nd concert.

2009-05-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

Pantree Owl Take 2
Last time I wrote about them, the band was unencumbered by such accutriements as a name. Some day I want to hear them in a (mostly) accoustic setting, but then, that is one of my particular oddities. Their sound was just right last time in Rhinos (where I was in the very back as far from the speakers as it was possible to be)

That said, their music was awesome. There were some electronic effects included that are why I don't want an entirely accoustic...

Oh my gods, Star Trek Trailer on o e of the TVs...
er sorry.
first one I've seen...

show from them.

So the music was incredible. I want a CD...
The professionalism...
problematic...

Start time was 9:00

The Band? Didn't show until 9:20.

Setup and sound check? About 30 minutes, a little more.
First, and least concequential, they need to trim at least 20 minutes from their setup and their soundcheck or have a member engage the audience during that portion of the "show".
On a related matter, since you have to know how long the setup portion takes, you should always take that into account when planning a gig. If it takes 30 minutes to start playing, you need to show up a little more than thirty minutes early.

Now to the important part.
Always.
Show up.
On Time.

Even if only memeber of a band can do so, get someone there when the band is supposed to be there. It is much more likely to convince a venue's owner to risk a second show by you in the future. It also keeps your fans and almost fans from becoming disgruntled were fans and were almost fans.

Given what I said about setup time, you really want your band to be at least 5-10 minutes early (not early to your play time, early to how much setup time you need to make your start time.) Not everyone needs to be there 10 minutes before hand, but your manager and or your sound tech? Definately should be there early.

So.
Music?
A+.
Band overall? C or so.

Just to be clear. They played a 45 minute set that started at least 50 minutes late. It is their second show, so hopefully they will take the lessons learned from this one to heart. They shoule be providing an event experience that does their incredible music justice. Technical proficiency and aesthetic excellence are important or even essential. But. For an artist to ever be any better than okay, they must be reliable. The flighty unreliable artist myth is jsut that, a way to ensure that you never have to be more than second string. (Both of my parents are to one degree or another, professional artists. I have little patience for artists who don't produce. It is hwy I make no claims to art.)

things

2009-04-27T22:01:00.000-07:00

So, I bought a lawn mower. And mowed the lawn. I also got my compost heap transfered from the bucket of doom to an actual outdoor pile. It smells pretty bad (thanks bucket of doom...) but hopefully a couple of days in the outdoors not made half of organic matter and half of water will take care of that. I do need to get some sort of metal fencing to surround it and keep it constrained. Also did laundry. Matt was doing his, so I tagged along and ran everything that I own that needed any cleaning.

We have a hose. Need another. I'm trying to decide on how much I am willing to pay for a grill. Also need some lawn furniture and indoor shelving.

I'm going to read Mouse Guard soonish. I want to recommend it (or not) as a comic and or game for a friend who needs such things. As it stands currently it looks like the Redwall books but less morally objectionable and stupid. (The game is supposed to be an incredible introduction to role playing and such for littleish kids.)

I'm obsessing over a gazebo. I have the cash for it, but then I wouldn't be able to do anything else. It would be awesome to have some summer gazebo parties, but I can buy lawn furnature or a gazebo, not both. And probably I shouldn't buy either.

I read Dresden 11 the day it came out. Now I want Dresden 12... I have some mutters about this book, but none that aren't spoilers and none that matter. Mostly things I wanted to have happen not things that he did wrong. Morgan and Molly are incredible together. Harry might be getting over one of his cases of the stupids. Thomas!

As much as this is false, I want another Mab book. (I don't want a mab book, but I want a mab book.

Work still sucks. I want to work where I can wear decent clothing. I need something that pays enough that I don't have to anguish over the gazebo.

FMLA is going smashingly. But without any actual smashing.

psa

2009-04-16T05:21:00.001-07:00

Remember. If someone invites you to a teabagging party, there are two groups of people who will be there. Tea baggers and tea baggees. If you go to one of Glen Beck's parties, check your income statements. If you made more than 250,000 dollars, you are a tea bagger, if you made less than that, then you are a tea baggee. While neither position really appeals to me, keep that in mind before you put yoursellf in a situation where tea bagging is an expected activity.

ZJD!

2009-04-12T05:28:00.001-07:00

Happy Zombie Jesus Day, wherein Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried, and on the third day, he arose again in fulfillment of the scriptures, to overshadow local rites, pass out chocolate bunnies, and eat your tasty tasty brains. Gir Arrgh An acquaintance of mine was complaining about the zjd jokes, how those who perpetuate ZJD wouldn't ever do that sort of thing to other locally smaller faiths. I'm not horribly fond of being painted with the liberal touchy feely wuss brush. Right here, right now, I'll tell you, did I know enough to draw similar parallells about key figures and stories in faiths that aren't the overwhelming majority in my country, I'd do it in an instant. Actually, in the name of holy irreverence, let's do that (for if there is anything holy in this world, it is not taking things too seriously) Post a key event or person from the religion of your choice along with a more modern cliche/concept that they match up with.

fmla

2009-04-02T23:48:00.001-07:00

Hi, my name's Michael and I'm a feminist.
Yes, that is a y chromosome there on my sleeve.
No, I don't mean ally. Ally is a term for someone who supports a group but can't be a member of the group.
Nope. Not that either.
Yes, I'm straight, genderwise I'm cis, and no, I'm not here to get laid.

I'm not sure that I'm the newest member to write one of these things, but if I'm not then it is just by a matter of weeks. To be honest, I started coming here as something social to do on a regular basis right after take back the night, and in large part because the meeting time worked with my work schedule while WSA's meetings were completely unworkable for me. That's probably pretty good, since I doubt I would have attended a third WSA meeting. I'm much more comfortable with the informal collaborative atmosphere we tend to have hereabouts. I don't deal nearly as well with highly structured meeting styles where one person (or small group of persons) absolutely drives the agenda and the tone. Well, honestly with our recent meeting sizes, maybe I'm comfortable with the small group of persons thing when I'm part of the group. Who knows?
The FMLA, as I see it, and we have had some spirited disagreements on this matter, works best as a support structure for individual members' personal activism. We get together, we discuss what the FMLA is going to be doing, but at the same time we talk about the particular issues and events on the horizon that particularly interest us. A personal example. I came here a little before Christmas break and sort of went off on a tangent about needing to call our assorted congress critters in support of the Freedom of Choice Act because I had some friends who were already beginning to mobilize in opposition to it. I figured that everyone present would possibly call their congress folk and thus act as a force multiplier. So you know, one voice becomes five. A couple of weeks later we had a huge stack of post cards for assorted congress folks (and I'm sorry, I can't remember who organized that feat. I know it wasn't me.) So instead of getting a few new voices, the FMLA increased my voice by an order of magnitude, possibly two.
As I see it, our basic mission here is memetic or informational. We talk. We talk to and thus provide support for each other, which is pretty important if you want to be an activist who doesn't either lose track of how other people thing or burn out early. We also talk to other people. We help organize awareness marches, we help host the Vagina Monologues, we create a newsletter, we support other groups and people who are also talking. We make people aware of feminisim as a matter of justice and way of life instead of a caricature of shrill, sexless/slutty, and angry women and downtrodden men that the movement has allowed its opposition to create in the minds of society as a whole. Feminism is, as I see it, essentially an issue of cultural memes, and if we want a feminist society, then we need to talk. We need to speak with not one voice, but with five, with ten, with thousands.
Hum this isn't really a paragraph so much as it has paragraphs... I fail once again at brevity. So in brief, welcome to the FMLA. My name is Michael Phillips, I'm your webmonkey until you find someone better. Enjoy the pie.

As always
Michael Phillips
roninkakuhito@gmail.com
thebellfeminist.wordpress.com
roninkakuhito.wordpress.com

question

2009-04-02T06:22:00.000-07:00

I am looking for a word. I am not sure what it means. I think it means a pause in conflict, but I could have it exactly backwards. It is spelled something like but not exactly "dente."
Unfortunately both google and my online dictionaries correct dente to al dente without suggesting the word I want.

D&D Podcast

2009-03-28T08:19:00.000-07:00

http://ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com/305847.html
So I listened to all of the PA/PvP/WW/D&D podcasts that are up yesterday.
A. It would be awesome to game with any combination of those people.
B. The first adventure was run sort of lacklusterly. I wasn't sure if it was Perkins and Wyatt being just okay dms, the adventure being just an ok adventure or what, but it lacked a lot of the cool that 4th edition is supposed to have. The active battle fields and such. But, and this is important, even with an average performance by the DM (and I've played for 20 years. Neither of them were bad in the first episode, I've played with DMs who would make them look like paragons of the art.) the game was incredibly awesome. Part of that was the guys around the table (In this case, Tycho, Gabe, Scott, and Chris or James) being the sort of people who, when you are in a room with them, you are having a great time, but part of it was the strongest part of a relatively rules light tactical rpg. It is a social game, not a world simulator, so you dn't need an awesome DM to make for a great game.
C. Episode 2, the third adventure brought back Tycho, Gabe, Scott, and Chris, and introduced us to Wil Wheaton. Wil had done his homework, had learned a fair amount about the system and was that treasure amongst players, the rules guy who isn't an ass about it and who likes to role play. He is also one of those fun to be near people. If that had been all, it would have been a good game. But. Chris Perkins brought his A game to the table and ran as well as i've seen a person run a game. Wil helped out by being an actor who has spent serious amount of time learning about presenting things via non-static media. 4.0 is a minis heavy game, very visual and tactile, and the presentation was helped immensely by his table descriptions.

2009-03-28T05:49:00.000-07:00

gmail, facebook, d&d podcasts, ok cupid, live journal, wikipedia on ephiphytes

so I had a good day

2009-03-26T18:59:00.001-07:00

Well I had a good day.
Actually the first 10 hours were pretty meh.
I woke up, too tired, went to work, too few employees too many customers. Did get to polish my "I am Homo sapiens sapiens, descendant of..." speech so that was ok.

But.

(oh I forgot, almost all of my crocuses, crocusai? croci? are up and blooming! That was a cool part of my morning.)

After work I stopped at the good will to see if there were any vintage electronics (read "Atari 2600 or Intellivision or any of a few dozen games I'm looking for) or old board games in. There weren't. But I was checking out the tee shirts. I almost never do that. I found a don't panic shirt in my size (with the little green guy on it) Now, I am less of a HHGTtG fan than almost every other HHGTtG fan on the planet, being less than enthralled by a lot of the supposedly clever bits, but I do still like it and it is, overall, rather funny in that "please for the love of god stop quoting the same 10 dammed lines" sort of way that a lot of Monty Python is funny. Well for all of that, I am still a fan, and the little green guy was on the cover of one of the games that I played as I learned to read and type (Specifically the Infocom Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Fucking Brits and their analgesics instead of pain killers or asprin) so way cool.
Then as I was riding down town I forgot that I can't ride my bike without my hands on the handle bars and wham I was peddling along and I took my hands off the handle bars and I so didn't crash or anything. And I'm not talking about riding down a hill without your hands on the handlebars, I'm talking about pumping the peddles handsless. Okay okay I know, but brain damage as a wee one and crappy small motor skills and every victory is a victory. So yeah, good day. And no work tomorrow, so sleeping or the equivalent will be caught up with by YT.

2009-03-26T05:06:00.000-07:00

er... elm...

march flowers....

2009-03-26T05:01:00.000-07:00

My crocuses are blooming and my Ash is about to undergo bud burst.

dinosaurs

2009-03-24T05:32:00.001-07:00

I'm looking for a good Dinosaur book, something with pretty pictures that is a decent snapshot of the state of modern paleontology via dinosaurs. I had a few of those as a child, but they were getting dated before I shifted interests to other fields.

Blogging and me

2009-03-15T15:46:00.000-07:00

http://ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com/304084.html

So, I've got three new blogs up and around.

The first, The Bell Feminist Bi-Monthly is not actually my writing. It is, instead, the online branch of the IUB FMLA's newsletter. My only content on it so far is the pathfinding posts. I'm potentially interested in running a similar blog in the not too distant future that isn't tied into an outside organization.

The second .roiretni eht ot doar worran eht morf snoitcelfer is another mirror of Reflections From the Narrow Road to the Interior. Same content, slightly different interface.

The third is my roninlabs.org blog which has not, at this time, been particularly active. I'm working on it.

advice

2009-03-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

http://ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com/302269.html
A reminder to those of you who might think that listening to me is a good idea.

If you step on your sword online, please don't just delete the offending text.

If you have to edit something, use the strike tag or something similar to mark the disavowed text. If you add things to something, make sure that the additions are marked as such (preferably with the date and time of modification clearly denotated.)

This keeps you honest and means that you can not be accused of changing your text in order to undercut an opponent's argument. (I think that if you were to spend a lot of time going through this very journal, you'd find examples of exactly that process.)

*edit The same night* Of me crossing out things that I no longer agreed with and flagging edits as edits, not me undercutting arguments by editing and or deleting the things that they are in response to)

reading 2009

2009-03-14T15:45:00.000-07:00

http://ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com/303689.html
1. The Stepsister Scheme Jim C. Hines The first of Hines's fairy tale kingdom books. Action, espionage, and fairytale princesses. Here's hoping that the next two are as good.
2. Strength and Honor R.M. Meluch. Rome is on the offensive after the fall of the hive with the mad Emperor planning to take Earth once again. Farragut and the last emperor's patterner stand between him and victory. The ending gives me hope that there will be at least one more book in the series.
3. Storm From The Shadows David Weber A mostly non Honor book set in the Honorverse. The first shots in the Solarian War that has been seeming more and more inevitable have been fired. Hopefully the next Honor Book will allow for peace with Haven, especially since the confrontation between Elizabeth and Honor happened in this book and it didn't end with a break between them.
4. The Queen of Stone Keith Baker I've yet to dislike one of Baker's Eberron books. This one introduces us to the politics of Droaam via a Brelish Dark Lantern. Since the King's Citadel in general and the Dark Lanterns in particular are among my favorite parts of the setting, I'm predisposed toward this one.

Anyone read anything cool yet this year?

Post Valenti Post

2009-03-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

http://ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com/303559.html
I meant to be posting this earlier, like the night that it happened, but well that didn't happen. Instead, here I am 11 days later...

I caught the Jessica Valenti: Feminism Still Matters lecture last Monday.
I didn't get a chance (was left off the RSVP list even though my name was definitely on the list of interested parties from the FMLA) for one reason or another to go to the dinner before hand. I'm going to assume snafu instead of malice, though knowing the personalities involved, it could easily go either way. More of why I dislike strongly hierarchal activism.

I actually arrived to an event early. I know, I'm shocked. At the last minute I moved up to the front rows. There were lap desks in the first few rows, though no access to an outlet (or this would have been posted that evening.) Well, there was the power strip that the projector was plugged into, but um, no. Not going to be the one to Fu that particular bar.

It turns out that Jessica is not 2.5 meters tall in real life. Nor does she bend steel plating with her teeth. Alas for the shattering of illusions. She still has the moral stature to support them though.

Ugh. The desks are right handed. Frack.

The WSA provides her with bottled water. There is a rant here about the essential connection between environmental causes and feminist causes and the tendency for the proponents of the second to ignore the first, but it isn't actually here .

She is 30 years old. I hate that the heroes of the current memespace are my age now. Completely underlines my lack of doing-thingsness.

She brings up one of my major issues: Most women are feminists, even if they don't know it, or deny it. A Lot of women are still too freaked out by the word to embrace it. (Frex, if you are reading this via my friends list, you are most likely a feminist. No matter how much you dislike labels. LLAD,QLAD,PAD)

From the viewpoint of the anti-feminists, telling women that feminists are all shrill man hating sexless sluts who are all super activisty bitches is both smart and tactical. If you can control the conversation, you can convince otherwise core feminists that feminism isn't for them at all since they aren't activists or they aren't man haters, or they aren't sexless, or they aren't sluts. Control the terms of the conversation and you can get people who should be your opponents' strongest supporters to do your work for you.

A discussion of the cyclical media claims that "Feminism is dead." If that were so, there would be a lot fewer people with a vested interest of maintaining the current social structure as it is trying to kill feminism.

Jessica is hella funny. "Yeah, I guess if I don't like rape tee shirts, I'm a bitch."

One thing that feminists need to do is start shaping the conversation. The blackhats have managed to define the terms so far, but if we can manage to tell the truth about feminism often enough, we can get young women to embrace the identifier.

About the current political culture.
Now that we have a supportive administration, one that isn't actively trying to regress women's rights and self determination, it is time. to address the underlying belief systems and cultural baggage that reinforce anti-feminist sentiment.

We need to combat moral panic over women's sexuality. She mentioned a FDA memo that sounded like it came out of a Dark Dungeons style tract, warning of the potential for plan b based sex cults.

Jessica's next book is called The Purity Myth. It is about the cultural construct of virginity, the fact that "It is time to teach our daughters that their ability to be good people is dependent on being good people, not on their sexuality." She reminds us that when women are taught about morality, they aren't taught that the important issues are things like courage or compassion, but the state of their hymens, that their ability to be ethical actors is primarily an aspect of their bodies instead of their actions. "Our daughters deserve a model of morality based on ethics, not their bodies."

When we got to the Q&A, we had some of the best questions. She got the mudflap girl/bare midriff picture question. I knew that she recieved that question, but I didn't really expect to hear it in real life, even at the lecture.

There was an awesomely long academic activist loaded wording question about women wearing things that cover their tits (while avoiding actually saying anything about what is being covered.) It was all dominant masculine paradigms and shit, with full out prefered answers coded into the question. Buddy boy had to read it off of a sheet of paper.

Should we pick a new word for feminism? "No!"
(I will eventually write my "No!" post.)

Abstinence and etcetra are fine but not moreally superior positions. Well handled, though the answer deserved more time than the format allowed.

She made another majorly important point. Opposition to women's reproductive rights is not structured around protecting life, it is structured around punishing women for their self determination/sexuality.

All in all the lecture was awesome, and I left with a signed copy of Full Frontal Feminism, my absolutely favorite primer on feminism, even if it happens to be aimed at women instead of a general audience (meaning specifically men and women.) (The kid who asked about that steped on his cod hard in his question. When I was his age, I would have too.)

psa

2009-03-13T08:59:00.000-07:00

so don't forget to celebrate 3:14 tomorrow.

meta to racefail '09

2009-03-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

http://ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com/302929.html
If you want to say "You are doing it wrong" that is okay. Even useful. In fact, at least in my case, I appreciate the input. But, if after doing so, you get hostile when asked "How do I not do it wrong?" then I really don't think that you have any claim to being taken seriously in your implied desire for me not to be doing it wrong.

Essentially, you are not obliged to educate, but if you are unwilling to educate than I am not obliged to give a rat's ass about your criticisms. Reducing hostility in a given medium is a two way street.

less catchy maybe

2009-03-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

http://ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com/302790.html
War what is it good for?
The shaping of the political environment via the application of force!

defining the memespace

2009-03-06T09:00:00.000-08:00

http://ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com/302027.html

Feminisim: the belief that while personhood and the right to self determination are universal among sophonts, experience is not.