Month: July 2009

do not stick in ear

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So I’m at work, and I’m reading up on how to write a functional specification, which seems to be my next task. Now, I’ve never written one of these before, so the Google is my friend.

I stumbled across Joe Spolsky’s blog in my search for how to write one of these, and in reading the sample functional spec he provides, I found:

(Your results may vary. We are not responsible for delays in transmission or on your computer which could cause the actual time to be a bit later than the time displayed. This service is provided as-is and is merely for entertainment purposes, not for accurate time-keeping. Do not stick WhatTimeIsIt.com in your ear or use it to clean your ear.)

I spent several minutes in my cube just giggling madly at the thought of using a web interface to clean your ear. Of course, this is work, and there’s nobody to share with, so I am sharing with the Internets.

EDIT: Later, in the same document:

The exact wording of this email is still being debated hotly by the board of directors and will be provided sometime before shipping. [ Developers: for now I suggest using a nasty word. That will light a fire under Chucks’ seat. ]

So funny, and yet, so true.

A couple thoughts

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(1) I’ve neglected my blog again. Sorry about that — I’ll endeavor to do better.

(2) If you are waiting on a response from me and have wrote me within the last week, I’m getting to it. It’s been a busy weekend, but the next two ought to be relatively calm as the folks won’t be here.

Anyway, the point of the matter — in the last week, I’ll get to you shortly. Anything before that, you might want to poke me.

(3) I really hate waiting for checks to clear. It’s annoying to have to remember that there’s money that’s been accounted for that still happens to be in the bank account and thus, I cannot spend that. Hopefully, now that Worldcon looms, those checks will finally get cashed. I don’t know *how* people managed in the time before online banking and debit cards. ;)

Anyway, that’s it. I’ll hopefully have interesting and erudite things to keep all five readers of my blog happy. *grin*

Notes towards fanzine publishing.

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I think I’ve found a way to get this printed at something resembling reasonable, but yeah, postage costs are going to kill me in more ways than one. Ah well, this is why I made this a quarterly production.

Anyway, the deadline for R&P 1 is this Friday, July 17th. I want to do pastework this weekend so I can get the printing achieved before Worldcon. This way, the fanzine lounge can have some of my contributions. The theme is ‘Beginnings’, but to be honest, the theme is really more for my edification than anything else. (That is, don’t let it straightjacket you.)

The deadline for R&P 2 is tentatively set for October 9th, because I’d like to have the issue out before NaNoWriMo starts in earnest. Tentative theme is ‘Heroes’. I know that’s a bit ambiguous, but I don’t want to color the reading. That said, I’ve never seen the television show. ;) That theme could change between now and then, but I remind you that the theme is for my edification, and I’m not going to stick too closely to it.

And of course, although R&P 3 is out on the horizon, I’m looking at early January for the deadline (probably January 9th), with a very tentative theme of ‘Dreams’.

Anyway, yeah. If any of my dear readers is up for contributing, I would love anything you have, particularly if you’ve got some talent in the art department.

For those of you tuning in late, R&P is Rhyme & Paradox, and it will be yet another fanzine from yet another science fiction fan. It’ll be hybrid, which means a pdf will go up on the wonderful efanzines site, and paper copies will be mailed to those who prefer paper. The first issue will be the August 2009 issue, and it will be produced ~quarterly, with August/November/February/May issues. (Of course, as the faned, I reserve the right to change the production schedule at my whim.)

So yeah, that’s about it. I just wanted to write a few things down where I can see it.

My commute this morning

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Next time the sign at the I-80/Cap City exchange reads something like:

ACCIDENT AT TRUXEL ROAD
USE ALTERNATE ROUTES

I will heed the warning and not go “Well, how bad could it be?”

Well, crawling three miles in forty-five minutes is about how bad it could be.

California Highway Patrol officials said the truck was carrying loads of dirt that ended up all over the freeway. All westbound lanes were closed for about an hour with two of the three lanes re-opening at 9:40 a.m. (News10 story)

It was sometime very shortly after that when I cleared the jam.

So yes, next time I am warned to pursue alternate routes, I will listen.

papernet is expensive!

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Yeesh, my new hobby is shaping up to be somewhat expensive. I wandered around Office Depot trying to get a bead on pricing, and yeesh. Mailing labels are about $10 for 250, manilla envelopes are about $10 for a hundred, and that’s not even counting the costs of printing and postage.

I begin to see why does all his fanac electronically. ;)

Anyway, I’m going to see if I can figure out cheaper ways of achieving the same goal. But for the moment, I may have to hold on my August deadline because I really don’t have the money to absorb startup costs at the moment.

***

In semi-related news, my Westercon vote must have made it to Tempe for the Westercon as I appear to have an attending membership for the 2011 Westercon in San Jose. Woohoo. I haven’t seen the check clear yet, but I’m going to assume that will happen Any Day Now.

And I mailed off my Worldcon and NASFiC ballots yesterday, so…

It’s been a good few days.

Things to do today

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I’ve put together my ballots for both the 2011 Worldcon and 2010 NASFiC, and am heading off to mail them, along with my mother’s job application.

I also have to go to the library and straighten out a technological problem — the new self-checkout machines are awesome, but if they don’t record that I’ve paid my fines despite taking the money out of my bank account, then we have a big problem. Okay, well, it’s relatively minor amounts of money compared to some of the library fines I’ve racked up, but it’s still money. (I also have to go switch books around, but that’s less of a problem.)

Then it’s over to the grocery store to get the ingredients for chicken soup. Yeah, it’s the middle of summer, but the temps are only in the eighties today, so it’s a good day for soup. Besides, for an improvised recipe, I make pretty darn good chicken soup.

I also want to get some writing done, pay a few bills, clear a couple boxes out of my room (or at least make them more organized), do laundry, get my old car up on craigslist, and deal with some email backlog.

So yeah, that’s my day. What are you all up to, my friends?

Quick thought from katster’s brain

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I’ve been dreaming again. I hadn’t for a long time, which was making me a bit sad, but lately, it’s been happening again. (Yeah, I know, we dream even when we don’t remember it, but isn’t that pretty much the same result as “I haven’t.”?)

Anyway, to get to the point, the dreams last night were about a superhero who got his powers by huffing ballpoint pens. I never exactly said my brain was sane, y’know. It was a pretty good story going, though, as he’d stopped sometime in the past because it was doing bad things to his health, but he stumbled across some of the artifacts from those days and said, “Screw this, I’m going back to heroics, no matter what it does to me.”

Which led to the funniest bit, in which he’s snorting these ink pens while trying to convince a friend on the other end of the telephone that, no, he hasn’t fallen back into that filthy habit.

(And yeah, I dream in plot. The dreams may get pretty odd, but the story seems to consistently hang together despite the oddities.)