I dreamed we had contact with an alien world. The aliens had plenty of gold lying around that they were willing to trade to us. In exchange, they wanted live humans, to keep as exotic pets and breed in different colors and so on. Every government on Earth was willing to sell its people to get the gold.

I dreamed that Pandora Hearts was actually taking place in the future, in an asylum where the characters were in cocoons undergoing past-life regression. The characters who appeared to die in the story were actually being cured and leaving the asylum. Then there's a flood in the asylum, and the healthy characters have to come back and help rescue the others. But that means bringing them out of the regression trance prematurely, so they're very shocked to find out they aren't really who they thought they were.

Is it becoming clear yet that cancer is a symptom, like fever? All of modern medicine's drastic, slash and burn methods against it are like bloodletting to treat a fever.

I am trying to knit my very first cabled piece, because the pattern vaguely resembles a sweater worn by someone in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

In sweaters, size matters. I managed to delude myself through about 3/5 of the back panel before I was forced to admit it was coming out a size too large. That wouldn't be so bad, except I wouldn't have enough yarn. I did knit a swatch first, but apparently didn't read it correctly. As I say, it's my first cables, and this pattern pulls in the edges of the swatch unevenly.

I will have to unravel what I've knit so far and try again with a smaller gauge of needle. It's just a setback, it doesn't ruin the project, but it is a nuisance. On the other hand, I'll get a lot of practice in a technique that's new to me!

The pattern is the Floral Trellis Pullover:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050227231418/http://www.thesmartyarns.com/patterns/jan05/floraltrellispullover.html
I think the pictures don't work any more, so to give you an idea of it, it's an all-over diagonal cable pattern that looks like a chain-link fence. When you're finished knitting, you're supposed to go back and embroider flowers over it. But -- and I know this is heresy for a Nicky Epstein pattern -- I intend to omit the flowers.

I should clarify my previous post. All's well for my family and me. We're unharmed, dry, and have electricity. Thank goodness. There are people in this area for whom it's not over yet. All I can do is not make things worse for them, by taking care of myself so I don't need to call the first responders, and they can help the people who need it most.

But I seem to have a lot of residual anxiety. I can't really believe it's all over and I'm safe. I don't see how I lived through both an earthquake and a hurricane.

People from more earthquake- and hurricane-prone areas will scoff that the northeast versions were mild. And relatively speaking, they were. But a doctor once told me there's no such thing as "minor" surgery when it's happening to you.

They say that writing about your feelings will help you feel better, and fortunately I have this journal, so that's what I'm doing. But if we get a rain of frogs next, I don't know what I'll do!

I do like Mayor Bloomberg, though. At a press conference, someone more or less asked when the looting and rioting in the shelters would start. The mayor sniffed and said, "This is New York, we don't do that here."

All's well!

I am in Zone A and I did not evacuate. Less than 24 hrs of bad weather to go, according to forecast. Hope to post with good news on Monday!

Earthquake's over, next up is a hurricane.

I'm in the "evacuation zone", which covers the entire peninsula. My set of highrise buildings has over 5000 residents, and there are about 8 other sets of highrises that I know about, never mind the lowrise units that are probably in even more danger. Our designated evacuation center is one high school about half a mile away from the nearest public transit, which probably won't be running anyway, and most folks in the city don't have cars. We're told to bring our own water, so apparently there won't be supplies even if we could get there, and without cars no one could possibly carry them. The city admits it's far preferable to stay with family or friends if possible.

In short: nowhere to go, no way to get there, nothing there if we could.

We're probably in more danger if we leave the building and try to travel than if we stay put. There is really no way to evacuate NYC. It has to be defended where it stands.

My family is okay, Shirayasha is okay, Kelly is okay. I'm okay and I hope you're okay!

Dear Squeaky,

Happy Sysadmin Day!!

The main theme of JoJo Part One reminded me strongly of “Master of Ballantrae”, and even the vampire bit doesn't come entirely out of nowhere (there are no vampires in MoB, but there is a shocking climax I can't reveal). Now I'm reading JoJo Part Five (or trying to; I have only a handful of volumes so far), and a minor theme is reminding me of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. Or is it my imagination? Is Araki a Stevenson fan, or just me?

Jekyll and Hyde are not good and bad sides. Yes, Hyde is all bad, but Jekyll is mixed, like most people. He has his vices, which is what leads him to the experiments that produce Hyde. Jekyll thinks there will be no way to link Hyde back to him because they look so different; when Hyde first appears, he looks both smaller and younger than Jekyll. Jekyll theorizes that, because he's been mostly respectable and indulged his vices only occasionally, his evil side has had less exercise and less development.

There is a character in JoJo Part Five with an “other side”, and from what I've been reading from English-writing fans, they seem puzzled as to why his “other side” should look so much smaller and younger. (There is a significant difference -- it's not like YGO, where the other Yuugi appears taller simply because he carries himself like a king.) I immediately thought of Hyde. But in this case, it's the mixed personality that is smaller than the purely evil one. That should be all we need to know about what kind of person he is.

I'm re-reading part one of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, and it's been reminding me of something. I finally figured out what: Robert Louis Stevenson's "Master of Ballantrae", with vampires. That's even more fun than "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"!

Still haven't been "rapt".

Ragga Eiriksdottir, quoted in the New York Times Sunday magazine section: "Knitting is the opposite of idolizing money."

I read somewhere that LiveJournal is being harassed for hosting the journals of Russian dissidents. I am always surprised to hear something like this; after all, it's not the "Evil Empire" (USSR) any more, right? Sadly, I should know better. My neighbors are Ukrainian. The grocery across the street is Georgian. I'm sure they could tell me there are still things to dissent about.

Has anyone here ever ordered online from Mandarake?

My budget edition of Last Exile arrived, and I just played through the whole series in a weekend marathon. I'm surprised at how engaging I found it; even YGO doesn't hold up to more than four episodes per sitting. But I kept watching Last Exile for hours, even though I wound up not liking the protagonists very much.

(Warning: the following review greatly exaggerates the negatives. If I really disliked the show this much, I wouldn't bother writing about it. Precisely because I mostly enjoyed it, I can't resist pointing out how it could have been even better.)
( Read more )

I donated:

https://www.nyc.gov/html/fund/html/donate/donate.shtml

For some reason I suddenly started to think of Last Exile. Jake had started to show it at the club, but never finished it. And now that I look, I see there’s a new series in the making.

Well, it’s based in the Last Exile universe, however that works. (I thought I heard that at the end of the original series, everyone flew away in a spaceship, so I don’t know where the new one is set.) But it has all new characters, so we don’t get to find out what happened to our favorites.

I was going to compare it to one Gundam series following another, but I remember that the first couple of sequel Gundams did feature appearances by Amuro and Char to lure the existing fanbase back. After a while I was expecting to see Amuro with a cane chasing Char with a walker (but Char’s walker would be painted red, so it would be three times faster!).

(And then they came out with G Gundam, but that’s literally another story. Jake hated it, so we never saw it. But now that I’m a YGO fan, it sounds kind of appealing to me -- another world where international conflicts are settled with a game.)

I just sent for the U.S. box set of Last Exile from Right Stuf, because a friend (who will remain unnamed) recommended the company. But now Shirayasha tells me they ship like molasses. I hope I get to finish the original series before the new one comes out!

I read an explanation of what's going on at 2channel. To combat spam, they're trying something like a reputation system. This is difficult for an anonymous site, and I must have hit it while they were having some sort of glitch earlier. It works now.

However, it involves a cookie left on your machine, and so far I have not figured out how to tell Firefox to keep this one cookie and no others when I close the browser. That means starting from scratch every time I want to post to 2ch. Fortunately that's not often. But I really ought to learn to operate my chosen browser!