Abstract Thoughts has been updated with Hating My Hobby - It is a rant, a vent and maybe a little transference anger from the death of my friend. However, I mean what I say. Don't like it? Tough. ( Read more... )

...that are going to make some craft-person rich, just as soon as they figure out the proper marketing strategy: Lovecraftian pasties.

Just saw the announcement that my (first?) contribution to the Domains of Dread series, called "The Endless Road," is coming out in Dungeon Online in January. :-)

As a huge Ravenloft fanboy from back in the day, this is one of my contribution to D&D Insider that I'm most psyched about. Of course, my track record with Ravenloft shows some unfortunate timing. I contributed to Dark Tales and Disturbing Legends, and then White Wolf didn't get the license renewed, so it became the last of their RL line. I wrote Black Crusade for the Ravenloft: Dominion novel line, and then the novel got pushed back, the line was canceled, and the book only ever saw the light of day online. So if the pattern holds true to form, they'll publish my "Domains of Dread" entry, and then the servers will spontaneously combust or something. ;-)

• 02:23 @vulcansmuse I adore that show. Not exactly historically accurate, but it did get me to pick up a bio on Henry VIII and one on his wives. #

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On Thursday I turned in the paper I was angsting over so much. I've gotten back two grades this week, a C (cringe) in my second essay for literary criticism and an A- on a test for Gothic literature. Actually, it may have been three, depending on what I reported last time. I got an A- on a paper for sophomore seminar and found out my current average for the course is A.

I'm currently working on my 8-10 page paper for Asian theatre, and theoretically working on a three-page paper for Gothic lit and four and six-page papers for sophomore seminar. The disclaimers: The theatre paper is not due until Friday, but I'd like a chance to have the professor look it over at least once more before then. She has said she'll look over as many drafts as she gets. The four page paper is due on Thursday, and the six-page paper is due on exam day for the class. We really only need to expand upon one of the four-pagers turned in over the semester for the six-pager, not write six pages from scratch.

In other news, the last session of the LARP for this semester happened. For those who are familiar with Changeling, this will make more sense; it turns out Santa is a true Fae and we had to fight him in the dream realm. Meanwhile, a leprechaun NPC changeling was beating up charity bell-ringer Santas because he claimed that all instances of Santa strengthen the true Fae. And we had to keep a ton of sleepwalking children from entering into the hedge, which led to a few police run-ins. Fun times. Maybe I should start keeping track of the LARP on my LJ for gaming.

NEW JOB
For the first time in my life, I have a full-time job. Starting in January, I will be teaching at the local community college full-time. Neat!

Spring 2009: Taught one course. (Math for Elementary Education Majors.)

Fall 2009: Taught three courses. (Two Business Calculus; one "Topics in Math")

Spring 2010: Will be teaching FIVE courses. (Two Business Calculus, two Finite Mathematics, one T.B.A.)

Assuming arithmetic growth, by next year I'll teach 7 in the Fall and 9 in the Spring. Hah!

OTHER APPLICATIONS
I have now submitted two applications for tenure-track positions. A third one is in the works.

As of this semester, I'm done with the required language courses for my major, but I want to be bilingual (eventually), do you think it makes much of a difference for getting into law school/getting a job after law school, if I learn a language through college courses and they see it on my transcript? I feel like I could perform better in other courses without having to spend endless hours studying spanish for college credit when I could learn it independently. Thank you all for the umpteenth time!

• 00:19 It's all snow now. Sweeeeeeeeeet! #alwx #
• 00:45 @cbrannon Well maybe you will later on! It just switched over a little while ago, so hopefully it'll keep coming! #
• 00:50 @TMLO Save them for the SEC championship tomorrow, that'll be some good football watchin'! #
• 01:17 The intarwebs have decided that the snow is an omen stating that Bama will kick Florida's ass tomorrow, and I concur wholeheartedly. #alwx #
• 01:39 The snow is starting to stick!!!! #alwx #
• 03:38 God, I hope this front stalls out and the snow keeps falling. It's unbelievably beautiful and we so rarely see it. #alwx #
• 03:43 @kweenie Why are you going to bed when there's snow outside?! #
• 15:55 Roll Tide! This is the game we've been looking forward to since last year. #
• 16:38 WTF Tiffin? You're better than that. #
• 17:23 @vulcansmuse Eh, I bet he wears Mark Ingram pajamas. #
• 17:38 Rock on with those touchdown, Alabama! #rolltide #
• 17:39 If this game doesn't convince the Heisman voters that Mark Ingram is absolutely deserving of the trophy, nothing will. #rolltide #
• 17:47 @ScottSchablow It will always be Troy State in the minds of anyone who grew up in AL, I think. Definitely will be for me. #
• 18:05 Ok, Bama really needs to come out after the half and widen that point spread. I'd love to see it be a 3-score game. #
• 18:21 Apparently Tebow has some asian blood in him, because he's confused 'playing football' with 'praying football'. #rolltide #
• 18:29 Wow, Colin Peek is ON it today! #
• 19:00 Eh, why go for 2? Now you need another FG to make it a 3-score game. Oh well, we're still kicking some ass. #rolltide #
• 19:06 Sweet fumble recovery, boys! #
• 19:09 Bah, overturned. #
• 19:10 zomg INTERCEPTION!!! #
• 19:29 @ScottSchablow No kidding... I don't know what I'm going to do with my weekends once the season's over. A sad prospect. #
• 19:37 @ScottSchablow Haha, that'd be cool. There's the kickball league too, though I haven't gone in months. #
• 19:40 That image of Tebow crying is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. #
• 23:23 Oh. My. God. I think Nebraska is actually going to win this one. time for a BCS clusterf*ck! #
• 23:31 Oh crap, Texas nearly pulled an LSU - they got VERY lucky there. #

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From the Friday Five this week:

1. What song do you play the most?

Currently, "Absolute" by the Fray.

2. What song do you play the least?

I'd have to look at my iTunes counts and see. I use an iPod Shuffle, so I make use of the limited space by not keeping songs I won't listen to.

3. What's the last song you added?

"Deep South" by Cartel.

4. What's your favorite playlist?

The entire contents of the thing?

5. What kind of iPod (or MP3 player) do you have?

I answered above...it's my beloved old jade green (not that icky lime green they have now) iPod Shuffle <3

• 23:39 Kelley and I just saw SNOWFLAKES outside! Woohoo!! #

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BWA HA HA HA!! OK, that line cracked me up, but I did get the shivers in the last few seconds...

End of Time promo! With some weird little CG promo ahead of time. Just be grateful I didn't post the ridiculously lame "The Doctor as Santa" BBC holiday ident thing. THAT was god awful.

Suggestions for a relatively cheap Classical Japanese dictionary? I couldn't really find much information through google.

At least for now. Remember when I said in my last post, "at least boring is better than disaster or drama"?

*Pauses to berate herself for cursing herself*

This time it's cat medical drama. ( Detailed description of illness and treatment - spoiler, it's Kakarot )

So there you go! I'm really shocked that I have a living cat today. Other than the cat drama - I finished up my projects yesterday (I must say I think the logos I gave my client are quite awesome) and I will probably go look at cars today. Anime night should be fun since I don't have to cancel due to cat death, and tomorrow I can look forward to gaming (unless he dies after all). I had a lovely dinner last night with B & G (I'll write about it in a different food snob post), and we went to Hastings afterwards, where I found 2 manga I was looking for used for $5 each. Woo! Did I think about the coming vet bill at the time? Nooooooo. And one of these days I need to finish the last disk of Kyo Kara Maoh and send it back to Netflix.

Welp, better feed the rest of the animals. And try to warm up. BRRRRR.

Originally published at kyleboddy.com. You can comment here or there.

I like to post this graph (or derivatives of it) from time to time. It speaks so much louder than me trying to explain why our country is fucked. (click for full image)

This was something I understood after ten hours in a Microeconomics class (in 2001, no less) as explained to me by a professor who was an admitted socialist, ensuring that he put his best spin on why government expenditures and conquering of markets was a good idea. At the time I was a political and economic apathetic; I cared little about this stuff. But it only took ten hours of class instruction – hellbent on convincing us that the Fed was a good thing and that free markets lead to exploitation – for me to realize that the exact opposite was much closer to reality.

That is why it frustrates me so much to listen to market intervention apologists and socialists rail on about fairness, equality, and other bullshit terms that mean nothing. No one can answer the simple question: “Who the fuck pays for it all,” without running into some serious logistical problems.

But I digress. Just look at the graph above. It tells you all you need to know about the US Dollar, and by extension, how stupid our central economic planners are.

• 13:50 Not putting clocks in hospital waiting rooms does absolutely nothing to reduce the irritation over ridiculous waits for short procedures. #
• 13:51 Also, I feel very uncomfortable leaving my grandmother, who has dementia, alone for this long. #

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Has anyone ever done a split summer? How many weeks did you work at each location? What's the minimum you think one could get away with? Thanks!

edit: I'm a public interest person - so this isn't for a firm, it's for a non-profit :) Also I have an offer and they said I can do a split summer but we would just need to iron out details.

So in class we're supposed to do an oral presentation. Mine is on 一番楽しかった旅行. After 3 drafts, I still keep getting some parts wrong and I'm not sure what else to put. Under the cut is my essay/composition. It's not in any order. Please help if you can!!

( Essay below )