On the advice of James Nicoll, started reading Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman series. It's pretty good. Not stellar in any particular arena except perhaps characterization. But no low points at all. So good dialogue, prose, world building, action and plotting. I believe they were written 20 years ago. (Available DRM-free in a variety of digital formats, for cheap, via Smashwords.)

I should mention that the main protagonists, both of them, are female, and the world depicted, though medieval/feudal in appearance, treats women both individually and as a category much better than our own does. So if that sort of thing turns you off, please step right this way into the rotating knives. 

What am I listening to these days?  Not as much as I used to.  At work I still have to use headphones, and I don't bother that often, so that playlist has slowed to a crawl.  Even at home, though, since we moved, I feel inhibited from playing my music out loud too late at night, because Simon's bedroom is in the basement with me; less so in the summer, and now that he's getting into high school, but still.  Also, some of the games I play have their own incidental music, and while I often turn it off to listen to my own tunes, sometimes I don't.  Plus, more watching TV on the computer.

I'm still using Winamp on the computer (though from time to time I consider writing my own personal media player program, which would be optimized for the tasks that I want, but I haven't even considered how to begin yet), and I have a number of playlists, most of them themed (such as Female Artists, or music I acquired in the past year, or Canadian Artists, or whatever else I can come up with), including my long-term effort to listen to my entire library of songs in alphabetical order (started in 2009; almost done the M's).  However, I'm also acquiring music at my usual rate--90 tracks a month from eMusic, plus occasionally buying other stuff from iTunes or other sources, or acquiring free downloads from various sources.

What I had been doing was doing one screenful (35 tracks, generally) from my alphabetical ordering, then one from another playlist (cycling through in sequence).  But when my "New" playlist started piling up, I made it come up more often like Alphabetical-New-Alphabetical-Other, or Alphabetical-New-Other.  And recently I've been falling behind enough that it's just been Alphabetical-New-Alphabetical-New, with no time for any of my other playlists.  Maybe that 90-tracks-a-month thing is a little excessive, but I got grandfathered into it at a very good rate years ago and I feel like I should keep up with it.  Probably classic Sunk Costs Fallacy there, eh?  At least it keeps me from buying much on iTunes.  I do still get CDs from the library, once in a while, but I've started just ripping them and leaving them sitting around until I can try them out...which can be months.  Forget about trying to keep up on what's current--I haven't done that for years and years anyway.  (How long ago?  Does the word "Tubthumping" mean anything to you?)

More consistently, I tend to listen to my "favourite songs" playlist, various ordered, while I'm driving to and from work (or anywhere else alone in the car), or while I'm doing the big dishwashing push on the weekend.  My "favourite songs" list is up over a thousand songs right now, so close to 1/40 of my entire collection; these are the ones I can easily sing along to, or would like to be able to.  It amuses me to come up with different ways of sorting it--alphabetical by title, alphabetical by reversed title, increasing order of length, etc.  Currently I'm listening in decreasing order of song length, which is interesting, though I anticipate a lot of Beatles and They Might Be Giants as I get down below three minutes.  (Next up, sorted in order of the anagrammed form of the title...)  In between the complete scrambled list, I tend to pick a shortlist, plus any new songs I want to audition, and do them in a plain scramble.

I've also become a fan of the "Welcome To Night Vale" podcast, as so many others have before and since.  It's gone up and down in quality, some of that no doubt happening around the time I caught up and had to start waiting for new episodes.  The recent resolution of the Strexcorp plotline was pretty good, though.  I've started only listening when I've got a couple of episodes accumulated, so I haven't listened past that yet; Simon and I did go to see the live performance when it came through town, though.

What have I been buying recently?  I started tracking down artists featured in the "Weather" section of "Welcome To Night Vale", and downloaded a bunch of their albums (a lot of them were on eMusic, which makes sense because eMusic focuses on indie artists, and so does WtNV), including Eliza Rickman, who was at the live show.  I used to avoid albums with lots of tracks, but now I appreciate them because they help me burn through my monthly allotment faster, so recently I downloaded the extended version of [The London] Suede's debut album (most of the bonus tracks were a bit too noisy for me, but I did like their cover of "Brass In Pocket"), and Davíd Garza's sprawling "box set" "A Strange Mess of Flowers".  (If you're really curious about what I listen to, of course, you can check me out on last.fm.)

I've been debating getting the new Weird Al album on iTunes; I watched all of his videos, and I confess that the only one that really won me over as a song was "First World Problems".  Normally I like his single-artist pastiches, even though I was never a big fan of the Pixies (as he is apparently paying tribute to with this one).  His straight song parodies never did as much for me, and even less so these days when I've rarely even heard the song he's spoofing.  I had heard "Blurred Lines", but "Word Crimes" unfortunately runs afoul of my preference for descriptive over prescriptive grammar.  I'll probably get the album eventually--after all, I have all his others--but I'm not sure when I'll get around to it.  (I haven't bought the last TMBG album, "Nanobots", yet either, partly because I kept waiting for it to show up on eMusic, where most of their albums are available, and partly because I never got around to actually listening to any of the songs from it.  Again, probably one of these days.)

Required:  One laptop bag strap or other flex-mesh, wide strap.  Also:  Extreme caution.

Seeking a longer term stretching than 3X30 seconds, but perhaps at a lower intensity.  Configure the strap like an old book strap - place the loop under your heel and knee, set the strap in the back of the knee and the other end around the ball of the foot. 

Tighten the loop until the strap stays in place - maybe this won't work for skinny people - and tighten until the ankle flexes and the ball of the foot is pulled back toward the knee.  Excess strap end can be used to crank this down a bit for more stretch but should not be done for long.   I have the excess end coming off mid-calf height, i pass it around the other side of the strap and under so friction will hold it.

Will be test driving the low intensity stretch with attention to any abrasion or circulation problems being prevented.

"He is doomed to go on doctoring his omelette."

The Philly Geek Awards have been running for four years now. This is the third time I've attended.

The Awards were co-founded by Tim Quirino, a former coworker of mine at P'unk Avenue. He's since gamboled off to design things at Facebook.

I have to say, they do an outstanding job seeking out nominees from outside the average white male Philly programmer's bubble.

Every year I come home with a program full of stuff I need to check out immediately:

Jason Richardson and the Black Tribbles, origaminc's These French Fries Are Terrible Hot Dogs, Jason Osder's MOVE documentary Let the Fire Burn, and Kid Kazo's Philly street art are all high on my list.

Of course I've been enjoying Kazo's work for years without knowing whose it was. One of the perks of living in the city.

Kyle Cassidy, with whom many of you are familiar, was nominated in the photography category this year after serving memorably as a presenter. He was nominated for his famous photographs of librarians. Which are the centerpiece of a touring exhibition narrated by Neil Gaiman. And he didn't win. Whaaaaat!

Well... since P'unk Avenue is twice nominated and never a bride in the website category, I can relate.

And did I mention the Geek Awards are held at the Academy of Natural Sciences? Where they roll out the red carpet and let you hang with the tortoise? On said carpet?

Without question, one of the sweetest things that happens in Philly any given year. If you live in town, make a point of snagging tickets next time.

Today we canoed on the Grand- it turned out that the 2-hour 10km trip was just the perfect length for today (putting in just upstream from Victoria Street). We saw loons, and blue herons, a pair of eagles or hawks, an osprey, some kind of aquatic mammal that might have been an otter... it was serene and wonderful.

I am feeling grateful for this river, right here all this time under my nose and under my wheels. And I do look forward to developing a closer acquaintance.

As performed by my feet.

This song is inaudible to the universe at large, it plays only in my head in the illusory body I experience there.

The song is the song of Plantar Fasciitis.

It's a terrible song, I don't recommend it.

I have periodic insomnia.  About once a month, sleep will not come.  My brain is not racing.  Physical ailments are minimal and don’t usually keep me awake.  Sometimes, it happens before a calm day and I can sleep it off with no problems except the glare from the wife for sleeping the day away.  Other times, it’s pure hell going through a day on an hour or two of sleep.  Today is one of those days.

Today's canoe ride on the Grand was the perfect length: including a little detour to the one side with a little lake and a beaver dam, we spent 2.5 hours kayaking from Breslau to Freeport.  It did rain on us at the end of the trip, but only a mild amount.

We'd originally scheduled the 4-hr trip (which starts 10 km further up the river); I think that would have been a feasible length if we'd been able to stop and enjoy a picnic, but in this weather, it wouldn't have worked.

I can't believe I've lived in K/W for 13 years and never done this.  It's only $60, including taxes, for two people.

The closest we can ever get to someone is before we've been born.

Everything after that is kind of a letdown, at least from a physical contact perspective.