Confessions of a Game-Mistress

Staring Contest Rules

gm — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:42:13 +0000

Original “Metropolis” Found After 80 Years

gm — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:55:41 +0000

“But a private collector carried an original version to Argentina in 1928, where it has stayed, Felix-Didier said. ”

Lost scenes from the sci-fi classic “Metropolis,” recently discovered in the archives of a Buenos Aires museum, were shown to journalists for the first time in decades on Thursday.\n

A long-lost original cut of the 1927 silent film sat for 80 years in a private collection and then in the Museum of Cinema in Buenos Aires, where it was discovered in April with scratched images that hadn\’t been seen before.\n

Museum director Paula Felix-Didier said theirs is the only copy of German director Fritz Lang\’s complete film.\n

“This is the version Fritz Lang intended,” said Martin Koerber, a curator at the Deutsche Kinemathek film museum in Berlin, Germany.\n

“Metropolis,” written by Lang and his actress wife Thea von Harbou, depicts a 21st century world divided between a class of underworld workers and the “thinkers” above who control them.\n

distributors cut Lang\’s three-and-a-half-hour masterpiece into the shorter version since viewed by millions worldwide.

Once in a blue moon

gm — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:41:20 +0000

I like this one. People say \’once in a blue moon, and usually mean \’almost never\’, but at least this way, you can see when they happen!

clipped from www.obliquity.com

\nThe average interval between Full Moons is about 29.5 days, whilst the\nlength of an average month is roughly 30.5 days. This makes it very unlikely\nthat any given month will contain two Full Moons, though it does sometimes\nhappen.\n

\nAccording to the popular definition, it is the second Full\nMoon to occur in a single calendar month.\n

\nOn average, there will be 41 months that have two Full Moons in every century,\nso you could say that once in a Blue Moon actually means once\nevery two-and-a-half years.\n

Blue Moon Calculator

\nIs there a Blue Moon this year? Next year? The year I was born?\n

\nThe Blue Moon Calculator knows the answer!\n

Wanted: Pre-1965 paper money

gm — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:38:16 +0000

All right, craigslist has weird posts all the time, but this really caught my eye.

clipped from www.craigslist.org

i have come into the possession of my great grandfathers life work, among being a decorated aeronautical engineer it would appear he dabbled in the lesser accepted sciences. i have almost finished building his masterpiece a 1952 nash rambler time machine. unfortunately my grandfather didn\’t live long enough to find an energy source with high enough density to fuel his machine, but i believe i have the problem solved.\n

\r\n

\nserious offers only, i would like to exchange paper money for paper money printed before 1965 (for OBVIOUS reasons!). i will pay 5% of the total currency exchanged, unfortunately i cannot offer transfers of coinage as i am already pushing the weight limit as it is!\n

\r\n

\nplease no solicitations on changing the future as any changing would only happen in an alternate future reality and be a waste of yours and my time

Ah, modem troubleshooting…

gm — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:09:30 +0000

more cat pictures " />

Searching GMail - how to find any message

gm — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:40:42 +0000

The sight of someone scrolling through hundreds of email messages trying to find a specific one is like fingers on a chalkboard for me. With a few tricks, you can use Gmail to find the exact message you’re looking for, without all the scrolling.If you don’t get a ton of mail, just typing in the words you’re looking for usually does the trick. I can just type lisa in the search box and get all of the messages from my friend Lisa, southwest to bring up my ticket confirmations, or “bank statement” to help get my finances in order.

But the real power of Gmail search lies in search operators — words that help modify your queries. Search operators work pretty much the same way within Gmail as they do for Google. So, if I want the email Lisa sent me with her flight information so I know when to pick her up at the airport, I type from:lisa SFO. Likewise:

A link from my co-worker Michael: from:michael http
A photo from my mom: from:mom has:attachment
That last chat I had with one of the Gmail product managers: keith is:chat
All messages from ebay that aren’t outbid notices: ebay -outbid (the hyphen tells Gmail to return all of the messages that don’t contain the word that follows it)
The messages in my inbox sent directly to me that I haven’t read yet: to:me is:unread in:inbox

You can limit the scope of your search to a particular subject (subject:) or label (label:) as well. And you can get pretty fancy. Recently, I was trying to remember the date of my friend’s April birthday. I always send her a birthday email, so I searched to:maya (birthday OR bday) after:2007/4/1 before:2007/5/1. It’s the 19th.

If remembering operators isn’t really your thing, that’s ok. There’s a “Show search options” link to the right of the search bar at the top of your inbox.

Clicking that provides you with text fields you can fill in to get the precision of advanced search. Start there, but after a while you’ll probably find that using operators is a lot faster.

(From Google blog)

As for gaming, I spend a lot of time chat-gaming using gtalk, and my chats are my archive. I had to learn to search more effectively to find the name of the NPC I named off the cuff weeks ago and need to refer to now. Once you’ve gotten the hang of the operators, they’re logical and simple and make searching so much more effective.

Wiki Spam

gm — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:44:56 +0000

All right. I’ve been on the web a long time. I’ve seen lots of spam. Usenet spam, email spam, popup spam, even blog comment spam (and boy do I have to keep an eye on that one). But the latest round of BS I’m fighting is really aggravating me.

I’m talking about wiki spam. I woke up this morning to a ton of gibberish links plastered all over my wiki pages.

Do people really think anyone clicks on these things?!?

Suggested items for a go-bag

gm — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:07:06 +0000

Emergency preparedness planning is essential to keeping yourself and your family healthy in an emergency situation. If we learned anything from New Orleans it’s that the government and agencies can not be relied on when a true disaster happens.

As far as gaming goes, I think every character of mine in modern games has a kit like this in the trunk of the car or in the closet just in case.

clipped from www.google.com

What would you do if you lost power for a day? What about a nasty storm knocking out transport to your area for a week? What if you had to evacuate your home because of a wild fire?

A little emergency preparedness can go a long way. Spending an hour or two today, along with a few dollars, can make sure that you have less to worry about in the event of an emergency. And if you’re worrying about a bad storm or a wild fire, I think that any peace of mind that being prepared can bring you is worth the effort.

So what do I think is important in an evacuation bag?

A basic first aid kit

A map

A flashlight with spare batteries

A blanket

change of clothing, with extra underwear and socks

Soap and a few other basic hygiene supplies

A coat

Medication

A recent back up of important computer files

Copies of important documents, such as birth certificates and Social Security cards

An inventory (for insurance purposes)

A list of important phone numbers

Snacks

A deck of cards or other entertainment

Tech Support Cat

gm — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:58:00 +0000

more cat pictures

I’m applying for a new tech-support supervisor position. Wish me luck.

4e - New campaign, world conversion

gm — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:40:47 +0000

Ah, the joys of a new edition of D&D. I now have to convert all my work on my campaign world into yet another new system. The crew voted to try 4e for the game since we’d all gotten early copies of the rules.

I’m trying for a ‘lower-drama’ version of my usual style. I usually wind up with world-shattering drama, this time, I’m trying for less of angst and more humor. Wish me luck, humor and the light touch are things that I need work on.