...o grant thy faithful hedgehog's boon...

I just got back to work from a 6 week (paid!) sabbatical. Yes, I work for a company that, while not generous in vacation, does give us a 6 week sabbatical every 4 years. Yay, left coast values!

And by yay-left-coast-values, I mean a real intent to support work-life balance and egalitarianism. Not the tiresomeness of constant consensus building and non-commital hedging that comes with it.

Anyway, sabbatical. I dragged my feet for many months scheduling it, as I had relationship issues to sort. And I didn't want to burn my sabattical time balancing his needs. Which is one of the many straws that help show me it was time to break up. But break up we did. Schedule sabbitical I did - 17 days on the left coast for burningman, then the balance home in Delaware recovering.

I'm working on a video which I may never finish entitled "What I did on my sabattical".  Here's the outline:

• Attended Burning Man (with early entry for build time : 13 days)
• Helped build burning man art - Pyramid of Possibilities.
• Burnt down said Pyramid.
• Knit 3 Barbie doll dresses, though one did not fit (too large).
• Built a Bar.
• Built some Ball Art
• Saw a Drag show (in the middle of slower lower Delaware). Drank too much.
• Took the 3yr old to her first day of preschool.  Took her to the beach. Took her to the Air Plane museum. Took her to the Agricultural museum. Took her to Washington DC. Took her to lunch x5. Took her to dinner x3. Took her shopping.  Bought her a "big girl" bed.
• Bought a picture frame. Bought a second picture frame (for the same picture). Framed said picture in the first frame.
• Took another picture to a frame shop, awaiting its return. 
• Finished Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Got 4 chapters into the Hunger Games.  Got 4 chapters into Longitude. 
• Watched 5 episodes of Doctor Who, one which I'd already seen.
• Changed a failed ceiling lamp.
• Disconnected a different failed lamp, but unsure how to fix it.
• Got 2 massages
• Built a flower bed.
• Planted flowers (in a different flower bed)
• took out the trash x4.
• Reassembled the scribble bot for another round of scribbles.
• Designed a pendant and ordered 150 from etsy for giveaways at the next fest. Bought cord. Strung 120 of the pendants on cord. Ran out of cord.
• Ordered stuff on Amazon. Ordered stuff on Ebay. Ordered stuff on cafepress. Ordered tickets on Eventbrite. Ordered Tickets on Flavorous. 

Ok, maybe a picture - as a test. More later.  More reflections on the affects of a sabbatical. later . . .cause sabbatical is over and I should be working.

Begged, actually. 

Tomorrow I'm at home. A guy is coming to fix the holes in our siding, so that we don't endure Winter #3 of Bedroom Ceiling Roller Derby: Squirrels vs Pigeons. It might sound hilarious, but trust me, it's not. 

I invite you to harrass me to write tomorrow. Use the media of your choice. I should be writing, working on podcasts and not fussing over distracting minutiae.

We've got music things happening every night this week, with no downtime until I leave for north Jersey on Columbus Day for a 3-day work gig, after which I head to NYC to see Matt's play, after which I head home just to head to the airport to go to San Antonio for 5 days. 
Then I'm home for a day and then I leave to spend Halloween Week in Richardson, TX. 
"Jill! Why not spend that one day off between San Antonio and Richardson TX in Texas? Why spend your day off flying?"
Because I'm soooooo close to earning Companion Pass status on Southwest Airlines for 2015, so if I can fly on someone else's dime I will.  (Companion Pass = Buy my ticket, get Matt's ticket 100% free, no restrictions at all. Even if I "buy" my ticket with Points, Matt still flies for free, no restrictions. It's a hell of a deal, especially as a band that's a duo.)
OK, that's enough outta me. Gotta eat because we've got studio time tonight.
(x-posted to LJ.)
(ps: Sorry for the wall of text. Can't figure out how to insert white-space-line-breaks using mobile.)

"Inspiration: what's up with your kids?"

As it happens, I just wrote a blog post about my math-loving, creative, artistic daughter making her own Life of Fred book: http://www.mommyvan.com/2014/10/the-best-freds

Life of Fred is a hilarious math curriculum popular among homeschoolers, but would also make a great supplement for anyone who wants some fun off-the-beaten-path reading with their kids. Fred is a five year-old professor at KITTENS university, and his sidekick is a doll named Kingie. They make all sorts of cool discoveries about math and many other topics, and reinforcing those concepts as kids read (or listen) is a bonus along the way.

To celebrate the add media buttons working on my ipad now, here's a preview:

Well I finished Mass Effect 1 today. One interesting aspect of the game is the character traits paragon and renegade.  You gain renegade points for being an asshole, and paragon points for the opposite. Each of those traits affects a skill, charm and intimidate. I'm sure you can guess which goes with which. The higher those skills are, the more you are able to resolve conflict with dialogue, as opposed to shooting things.

Me being me, I maxxed out Paragon points probably 2/3 of the way through the game, but because of the way the skills tree works I was able to max out my Charm skill much earlier. I figure I talked my way out of at least 10% of the gameplay.  (I am pretty sure you gain a reasonably equivalent number of XP for averting crises vs. burying them, but I dunno.)

Overall I found the main plotline to be enjoyable and full of reasonably diverse environments and situations. Side quests were horribly cookie cutter especially in terms of assets with the same three or four sets used and oh my god how boring the planet surface sets.

The best part and what made it worthwhile was the voice acting, plotting, and dialogue scripting, as I'm sure has been noted by other reviewers. Some really topnotch storytelling work in this game. I could quibble about how linear it is, because it's really linear, but it was nice experience all told.

And yeah, there are romance subplots, but I didn't like any of the options presented. If you choose to be a female lead, you can hook up with the douchey, moody male soldier or the sensitive omnisexual alien. I didn't like either one of 'em. I liked the sassy female commando. But, no, while apparently freaky inter-species sex is totally okay, good ol' ordinary lesbian romance is right out.  

Of course if you choose to be the male lead, you can have the sassy female commando (or the alien). So the dialogue and scripting are already there for all 2 main characters x 3 NPCs to have sexytimes. But not the attitude of the developers; that's not there. (Apparently in the PC version you can hack it so you can achieve those homosexual romances, so it's technically possible. But not socially acceptable.)

It is very nice that in every other aspect of the game, though, male and female genders seemed to be represented with reasonable equality and egalitarianism, and that made me quite happy.  

I don't think I'll bother to play it again. I don't see that there's much variation in playstyle, particularly at the endgame. You're going to be shooting and zapping the boss no matter what, and by then all the guns are basically the same. And I don't want to play the Renegade side because ugh.

But I liked it, and for the seven bucks I paid for it, it was time well spend and well enjoyed.

Hey peeps: fellow OPW developer Sean Puckett has kicked off a good discussion of OPW's future, and specifically the future of its signature feature. Your thoughts would be welcome.

In not unrelated news, a crazy amount of stuff got improved on OPW this week:

• "About Us," "The Rules" and "Your Privacy" published
• Timestamps for posts and comments
• "Mention" button in the editor to add a link to a friend's OPW blog (blame me for the terrible temporary icon)
• Confirmation prompt for deleting comments
• Media buttons work properly on iPhones, iPads
• Sharing your public posts on Facebook works much better
• Notices for posts with titles in Japanese work properly
• Click anywhere or press Escape to dismiss the lightbox (seen when you click a photo)
• Fixed many other bugs
• Add/remove your friend from various locks while looking at their profile
• User bio (on your profile page / personal blog)

So, here I am. Thanks Mark. I didn't really mean to leave off my last name, but I tend to be cautious in new places and didn't realize I wouldn't be able to change it.

I made biscuits with my girltwin today, first one on one time with her in a while (husband had the other two out to lunch). I'd show you a picture, but the 'add media' thingies are not working on my ipad.

My neighbor is in her early 70s and is probably the most stubborn person I know.  Help?  Doesn't need any.  Except under extreme circumstances like in the months leading up to the hip replacement.

Our circle of friends is of course full of kind, well meaning, highly intelligent, stubborn nutcases.  There's the lady with COPD who Will Not Stop Smoking and has been waiting for the man to come and fix her refrigerator for over two years.  She's the most mainstream of the bunch, I think.

Between us all, as much as we're allowed to do is take care of the bird room - it's down some stairs, and pick up things from the store - no driving!  Neighbor always has a REASON why she has to do this or that, including why SHE has to cook dinner for COPD Lady the day after her operation instead of letting COPD Lady do it.

Then there are the dogs.  Old Dog has Cushing's and just wants to lie around.  Border Collie Mix dog is 3.  OMG.

The Moluccan is his own special hell in a handbasket.  Albeit extremely cute and very polite.  "Come Innnn!"  "Buh-byeeee, buh-byeee."  Except to the dogs when it's go out time, "GOOOOGOGOGOGOGGOOOGOGOGOGO!!!!"

It's like Wild Kingdom right there in the living room, not counting the five birds in the aviary, the pair of conures and the canary in the office.  It's a wonder this woman hasn't completely lost her mind.

Or maybe she has.

I spent a good part of the day doing some shopping, helping out at the house and bringing her favorite dinner from the Salvadorean place.  Mostly I listened to her trying to resolve whether or not she had a "real problem" with the blood pressure and low grade fever - the one likely dehydration and the other a side effect of the blood thinner.  I played with the dogs until BCM doggeh was too tired to go all the way to the flung monkey and bring it back.

Tomorrow it will be Dunkin' coffee and a "coffee roll" which is all it takes to make her day, most times.  We'll see...  I hope she's all better soon because I bug out on Weds PM for 6 days.

I've now wrapped up most of the shows I've been watching from the most recent season.  (Sailor Moon Crystal continues, and I have to catch up on Aldnoah.Zero, which is pretty intense so I tend not to watch it casually.)

Hanayamata matched my expectations pretty much exactly: cute, fluffy, entertaining.  Sugary almost to the point of irritating.  No particular need to watch it again, but a good counterbalance for more serious stuff.

Rail Wars tried hard to balance Dramatic Action with fan service.  Almost made it.  I definitely preferred the episodes that were more focused on action; the light-hearted episodes tended to slide toward the gratuitous.  I don't regret watching it, though — it was still much better than Momo-kyun Sword (which I abandoned 5 minutes into the first episode).

Sabagebu! was completely absurd and over-the-top, but dammit, it made me laugh, and that's really all you could hope for in a show like that.  Don't try this at home, kids.

I very much enjoyed Glasslip, which was something out of the ordinary.  Inasmuch as it was playing around with alternate realities, I couldn't definitively tell you how the story ended — but that's par for the course in Japanese storytelling, so I'm taking that in stride.

I've already started a few shows from the next season, so we'll see how they shape up.  Karen Senki is a computer-animated short-episode show aiming for the same balance as Rail Wars, I think.  Terraformars had a pretty brutal first episode; some people are complaining about it having been censored, but I don't mind if they dodge some graphic violence.  And Denki-Gai got off to an entertaining start, I hope it can keep it up.