Other: TO ALL SAILORS WHEREVER YE MAY BE

My mother found an ancient suitcase of papers which had belonged to my father's mother. Most are various records dating from the 1930s-50s, but there are some gems, including a small (about 2"x4") book containing the four gospels. The very faded handwritten inscription in the front is dated 1889. There was also this large and fabulous certificate rolled up in there, printed on heavy paper and about 14"x18" in size:



It reads as follows:

TO ALL SAILORS WHEREVER YE MAY BE: and to all Mermaids, Sea Serpents, Porpoises, Sharks, Dolphins, Eels, Skates, Suckers, Crabs, Lobsters and all other Living Things of the Sea

GREETING: Know ye: That on this 23rd day of November, 1936 in Latitude 0000 and Longitude 106 // 30 E there appeared within Our Royal Domain the U.S.S. Black Hawk bound South for the Equator and for Manila, Philippine Islands

BE IT REMEMBERED

That the said Vessel and Officers and Crew thereof have been inspected and passed on by Ourself and Our Royal Staff
AND BE IT KNOWN: By all ye Sailors, Marines, Land Lubbers and others who may be honored by his presence that

Elmer W. Melvin

having been found to be numbered as one of our Trusty Shellbacks he has been duly initiated into the
SOLEMN MYSTERIES OF THE ANCIENT ORDER OF THE DEEP

Be It Further Understood That by virtue of the power invested in me I do hereby command all my subjects to show the honor and respect to him wherever he may be

Disobey this order under penalty of Our Royal Displeasure

Given under our hand and seal this 24 November, 1936

Davey Jones
His Majesty's Scribe

Neptunus Rex
Ruler of the Raging Main

By his Servant J K Esler, Commander

It has the seal of the U.S. Navy. I believe Elmer Melvin was my father's mother's mother's brother. What a find.

Other: Things That Make You Go WTF

I've been saving up some stories that just make me either scratch my head or want to pound it into the keyboard, or even pound someone else's head into the keyboard.

• A few days ago, I cursed about how often Fallout 3 crashed on me. Of course, it's not alone in its bugginess, and I'm not the only exasperated gamer. The EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner even wants legislation that would force software publishers to give refunds for defective product. Of course, all complex software is going to have at least one reproducible bug, but there's just too much out there riddled with errors. And if, like Fallout 3, the program can cause the whole OS to crash (as much the OS's fault as anything -- user level programs shouldn't be able to have that effect), that's a serious problem. One quote from the article: “Cars, TVs, and telephones are all expected to work, and they are full of software. Why not standalone software? I think such legislation would put software makers under pressure to first make sure their software works, then worry about more bells and whistles.”
• An American student got to watch her laptop get shot 3 times by Israeli border police. On the upside, they missed the hard drive.
• How not to improve your costumer relations. Tell them it's their fault they oversaturated your wireless network, rather than take responsibility for underestimating traffic and not having a robust enough network. Cheers to you, AT&T!
• Repeat after me: I will not post my every conscious thought on my Facebook page. I will not post my every conscious thought on my Facebook page.
• I find the hypothesis that it's not that there aren't enough women but just too many men in computing, um, dubious logic at best. Honestly, though, I've only ever worked in a group with one other woman in a peer position, and I've been doing this a long time. The preponderance of men in the profession never affected my decision to enter it and stay one way or the other.
• Yes, Facebook is still evil, and I still will never get a page.
• With friends like these...
• Stupid software patent du jour.
• Facebook's use of PHP causes global warming. Now they're super evil!

Spoonerisms: The Most WonderFur Time of the Year

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

What is it about Christmas time and kitties? The tree, the wrapping paper, the new stuff that has to be sniffed and investigated and inventoried, the abortive attempts to decorate the cats themselves. (Sadly, my cats miss out on the tree and its accompanying pile of wrapped presents.)

My memories of Christmas are often peopled by, well, cats. Prissy, the tiny Siamese kitten playing in the tinsel when I was 3. The original Coco, posing with reindeer antlers made for a dog for all of 10 seconds, barely long enough to snap a photo, and that with a really pissed face. More recently, the first Christmas I visited after my parents got Coco II. As soon as we put all the wrapped presents I had brought for them under the tree, he started shredding them. Just the ones I had brought, though...

Perhaps when I am visiting my mother over the holiday this year, I will go through the old picture albums and scan some of my own classic Christmas cat memories in.

Knittin' Crap: Costume Ball

A few months ago, my friend Steve and I were discussing the San-X mamegoma characters, those little seals that would be cute enough except they also have all sorts of costumes. Steve asked why anyone would put a costume on a baby seal. Why, because it's unbearably adorable! Of course! While it's totally absurd, we couldn't deny that it was also absurdly cute. Leave it to the Japanese cute machine to come up with something like that. Steve then suggested a new character: a ball.... with costumes!

So, I'm introducing Costume Ball! And Costume Ball's first gender-nonspecific costume, the sunflower!


Stay tuned as I add more Costume Ball costumes!

Other: Escape from the Vault!

I previously reported how, over a year ago now, I had tried to get into Fallout 3. After I finally worked out the graphics card issues, I couldn't get out of the vault. I set it aside, for what turned out to be over a year.

Then, a little over a week ago, I decided to try it again. Why? (****SPOILER ALERT FOR BRAD****) For Brad's Xmas present I made him a Vault Boy amigurumi after the game's mascot.

That made me itchin' to give Fallout 3 another go, so I did.

I was barely heard from for 9 days. (And I don't think anyone noticed I was missing.) I "finished" the game earlier this evening. (Note I have none of the add-ons.)

Mini-review: Yes, overall, I'm disappointed, for several reasons.

• Gameplay: Sorry, I'm just not into FPS. I prefer the old interface. Yes, I'm old and stodgy. So shoot me with a plasma rifle.
• Stability: I cannot count the number of times the game crashed while I was playing it. It would just die. Usually it would fairly quickly come to the desktop again and I could restart, but occasionally it would hang, and I even got a couple BSoDs. So Fucking Annoying. And they weren't re-createable either. I'd load, try to do what I was doing when it crashed, and it would be fine. Fucking Windows. (I don't own an XBox or a PS3, so those weren't options, but the original two were PC-only anyway, and, well, I'm old-school anyway.)
• Fun: You know, it just lacked some of the magic of the first two. The first two games had this great sardonic humor. This one tries to re-create it, but that's exactly what it comes across as: that it's trying to re-create it. I never thought I'd say it, but I miss awesome characters like Myron. I miss the bit from 2 where you can actually be forced into a shotgun wedding for seducing a rancher's daughter... even if your player is female. (This happened to me once, and try as I might, I never could recreate it. Ever after, I would just get shot at.) Almost everything in that vein that does happen in 3 just seems forced.

I avoided the help guides and cheats for the first several days, but annoyance with the amount of time I wasted getting lost in buildings because they were dark, repetitive, and the Pip Boy map was nearly useless, drove me to lose patience, and I ended up spending a lot of time at the Fallout wiki. Oh, that's another thing. I replayed the first 2 games several times, and even now I start to think it might be good to try again... (No! No! Bad Karen! You need fresh air!) Replaying this game doesn't interest me. Oh, and it's annoying that, unless you buy one of the add-ons, the levels cap at 20. And once the game is over, without one of the add-ons, it's over. You can't keep exploring or finish up any side quests.

Anyway... yeah, it did keep my interest enough for over a week that I didn't do much else, but I wanted to squeal with delight so much more. Playing that much also seriously messed with my dreams. One involved Super Mutants and kittens, although they didn't interact directly. Aw, but wouldn't it be cute if a mean ol' Super Mutant had a snuggly pet kitty?