Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Steven Stadnicki's LiveJournal:

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Friday, December 18th, 2009
8:53 am	Ahhh, the searches one does... Hey Google? 'xyzzysqrl "Manly Stench" site:livejournal.com' ? Yep, that's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you! [ N.B.: spoilers afoot. Don't read yet if you're currently watching! ] Current Mood: giggly (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 26th, 2009
11:09 am	Garden stuff! I've been meaning to get some photos from my little herb garden for a while now; I'm trying not to do much heavy-duty gardening until I can get a place of my own (although Stef planted a pretty good swath of vegetables), but the place we're in now had some perfect 4' x 4' boxes set up and I couldn't resist filling a few of them. Here, let me give you the tour... If you want to boost your self-esteem, grow mint. :-) This started as six little plants; I put three varieties in there, apple mint (which is a classic stalk/spear mint), chocolate mint (i.e., peppermint, a creeping variety), and orange mint (which is somewhere between the two; I don't really care for the flavor, which has a bit of the bitterness of orange rind to it). That stalk in the middle? Four and a half feet tall — at this point I'm just letting it grow to see how much bigger it gets. I feel almost sorry for the weeds in this box... It's even been trying to escape, nevermind that there's a couple of feet of brick tile between it and the next box over. Here you can see the orange mint creeping out in a sort of horizontal sneak towards one of our squash. I'm a little curious to see if it can make it between boxes without laying out roots into the brick; it's hard to tell from this photo, but it's not actually touching the ground there... Just a few miscellaneous herbs here: from left to right (or counterclockwise, if you prefer), there are a couple of varieties of oregano (which never caught as well as I'd have liked), some chives (which have been wonderful but which I don't use nearly enough; fortunately they don't seem to mind the neglect), and then some blue rosemary. More miscellaneous herbs: counter-clockwise from the left, there's some lime thyme (which never really took off), some 'traditional' thyme (which also isn't doing as well as I'd hope, but is delicious), variegated sage, pineapple sage (the flowers off of this are absolutely delicious — I'm tempted to try and pluck enough for an ice cream), and then sorrel — more a broadleaf than an herb, like spinach, but with a very nice tart flavor. Strawberries! These guys took so long to start flowering that I was starting to get worried, but they've really caught in earnest now, with at least a dozen flowers and fruit (yes, yes, I know...) on each plant. And here are the berries themselves! This varietal is actually supposed to produce white fruit; I'm really curious to see how it comes out, and crossing my fingers that I'll get enough fruit to do more than just nibble. And for that matter, crossing my fingers that I beat the birds and scavengers to them... And what goes with strawberries like basil? There are actually five different varieties here, although the 'lettuce-leaf' looks a lot like the sweet basil (and is mostly hiding behind it, just underneath the red opal in the middle of the left column). The other two are a thai basil (middle of the right column), and a 'variegated basil' that I'd never seen before (bottom of the right column). I should probably start harvesting these now that they're flowering, but I'm trying to hold out until I can get some tomatoes too and start making sauce... And here are my tomatoes! This is one of the 'black' varieties, a plum tomato from Russia that's supposed to have a slightly smoky flavor to it. I'm really hoping to get enough to make a sauce with, but so far there are only about a dozen fruits on this plant and there aren't even flowers yet on the other one I planted. Aren't they adorable? They grew pretty quickly at first, but they've been slowing down a bit lately; I don't know how much longer they have to ripen, but I'm really curious to taste how they turn out. For comparison, one of my sister's little cherry tomato plants. I think it's safe to say that we won't be lacking in *those* this year... Current Mood: productive (6 Comments |Comment on this)
12:35 am	For the last few days we've had a raccoon hanging around our house; Stef first noticed it parked on a branch of our cherry tree a few days ago, casually watching her while she gardened, and then I was lucky enough to catch it Thursday night when I got home from work, sitting at the back of the driveway watching me with remarkable nonchalance as I pulled in and got out of the car. I was a little surprised this evening when I heard growling from the side walkway just as I was coming up to the door, and concerned to see the raccoon growling at me from maybe 20 feet away. It got a lot more understandable, mind, when I realized that she had her kids with her... Current Mood: d'awwww... (Comment on this)
Monday, July 20th, 2009
8:59 am	More coolness from the world of gaming I found William and Sly, a beautiful little platformer-ish exploration thing that has you playing a small fox, yesterday via the IndieGames blog; the play isn't necessarily that deep, but it's still engaging while being remarkably relaxing, and the art is absolutely beautiful; there's just a hint of mystery, enough to suggest some real depth to the world. The boss battle that ends it (after an hour or two's worth of exploration) is a little frustrating (okay, more than a little frustrating), but there's no real risk to it, so it doesn't feel as annoying as it might otherwise having to keep trying at it. I can't recommend this highly enough for most of the folks on my friends' list, if only for prurient vulpine reasons — check it out, for sure. Current Mood: impressed (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, July 17th, 2009
8:46 am	Awesome game news Sadly, no, not on any of my projects (yet). :-) It's still pretty damn cool, though: a new trailer for Michel Gagné's upcoming game. It's absolutely amazing how well his style animates — Well worth the checking-out. Current Mood: impressed Current Music: "Santana DVX", The Lonely Island (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
11:58 pm	I literally don't remember when I first met tugrik; it's been at least 15 years now, and probably closer to 20. It says a lot about him (and a bit about me, I suppose) that in a lot of ways, it really doesn't stand out for me; he's just Been There, consistently, since right around when I first moved to California, even if he hadn't quite figured out yet that he was a Californian himself. :-) And that's the thing: he's always been there. tugrik has a knack for finding ways to contribute, to help fill in other people's needs, and to do whatever needs to be done to turn folks' projects into a reality — including his own, of course. And somehow he manages to do it without calling attention to the fact that he's doing it. It's not a false modesty, there's no 'awww-shucks' about it; it's just Who He Is, it's his essential nature, and so I think he never really stops to think about it. And yet — keeping FurryMUCK running smoothly (and have no doubts that it has run smoothly; things have been much better at furry.com/Belfry than at any of our previous sites, by far) for the last 10+ years has really been among the least of his accomplishments. You may or may not remember, but he's a published author; builds things like satellite trackers for fun; randomly helps out building things like Gristleizers for friends... and so on. When Team Grey Goo ran our puzzle event this spring, it wouldn't have been nearly so impressive without his assistance; even with deadlines being unexpectedly short and with source material shifting regularly under him, he still managed to turn in awesome work in plenty of time, and the physical puzzle he manufactured for us was one of the event's highlights with everyone. And then he runs photography for pretty much every con he has a chance to, creates prints (and much more complicated media, for that matter) for artists and other creatives just to give their work its best showing... takes care of sick cats... and this is STILL all just the tip of the iceberg (seriously -- I've edited this post three times now to add more). I'm flatly agog at just how much he gets done, how much he does, and how effortlessly he seems to do it all. He's not exactly an inspiration — I can hardly even imagine aspiring to the sheer volume of projects that he manages to tackle — but in a lot of ways, he's a role model, a shining example of just how much can be accomplished by the truly determined, and what a little effort (okay, a lot of effort) can get you. And he doesn't get to hear how awesome he is nearly often enough. A wonderful, happy (and not yet belated!) birthday to tugrik. Current Mood: impressed (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, May 1st, 2009
11:43 pm	I have committed poetry... No, really, that's the right phrasing. My first offering for this year's napoewrimo; apologies in advance... Hooray, Hooray, the first of May A holiday satyric A fine start to a month's display Of poetry and lyric Here's to our writers new and old And all the in-betweeners May we all flaunt our verses bold And not just flash our wieners! Current Mood: mischievous (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 19th, 2009
7:45 pm	I've just proven that a particular (15-puzzle style) block-sliding puzzle is impossible. This would be a lot cooler if I weren't trying to use it for an actual physical puzzle. Bah. *grump* Current Mood: amused (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 16th, 2009
9:08 pm	Looking for Seattle-area volunteers this Saturday! Hey, local people reading this! Are you free this Saturday? Would you like to help a group of crazy puzzlers torment roughly 40 other groups of crazy puzzlers? Can you get to Pioneer Square? Come join us and help us run SNAP 5! We're looking for people to help us run a few of the locations that we'll be using for the game -- a smartphone is a plus, but not necessary; all you'll really need is to be able to hand puzzles off to people, take answers and tell teams if they're right (or wrong), and help direct them to the next location -- and we'll explain all of the above to you day-of. If you think you can help, please drop me a line here and let me know; it'd be greatly appreciated. Thank you!! Current Mood: busy (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
10:12 pm	5 More Things... ...this set for tracerj, even later. Bah! 1. Videogames As Art I'm a big proponent, no surprise; in fact, the burgeoning acceptance of artgames, and the commercial inroads they're starting to make, is one of my brightest signs for the medium. I actually don't play as many 'art games' as I ought, or probably as I'd like; it's at least partly a function of time, of course, as it's hard to devote myself to everything I want to; but at the same time, I think there's a little concern about giving myself too much to them, of overdosing at some level on them, in the same way that it's hard to read too much of a really emotionally affecting story, or to watch a particularly intense film. And I suppose I should give a list, hmmm? Right now, my top five would have to be Flower, Gravitation, Braid, Okami (well, the first 3/4ths of it), and... mmm, probably Rez, in roughly that order. There are other fine candidates — I'd add Ico to the list, for sure, and a couple of others — but those are the ones that really call to me right now. 2. Experimental Cooking There are a couple of distinct aspects to this, and I'm not sure which you mean, so... I'm going to hit both. :-) I have a fascination with Molecular Gastronomy — the sort of cutting-edge, science-enhanced cooking that seems to be all the rage lately — but I haven't actually ever sampled; there really aren't any restaurants in Seattle that go full-bore MG, but there are places I really want to get to that dip into it a bit. It's a neat notion, and while it can definitely be gimmicky, in the end the intent is just to make food even better — and I can wholly get behind that. If you mean 'experimenting with recipes', well... yeah. *chuckle* My curse and blessing is that (with rare exceptions) I just can't seem to fix any recipe straight up; I always need to change the spicing, swap out one vegetable (or meat) for another, etc etc... the cauliflower soup recipe I have used apple, but fennel worked much better for me; that sort of thing. It lets me feel like I'm creating rather than just following orders, and that really makes a huge difference for me. I don't know how much I can really say I've learned by my experimenting, other than how to make some awfully good food — but that counts for a lot in and of itself... 3. La Valese d'Eugenie I think what first drew me in was the little crackle of the record player; it's such a small touch, but it's perfectly executed, and the track as a whole is a beautiful fit into the album, a little palate-cleanser to recharge before diving into the album's last few tracks. It's not my favorite song on the album ("Moonbeam" probably holds that honor, though it bounces about the entire album depending on my mood), but the album wouldn't be the same without it. 4. FurryMUCK ...can you be a little more specific? :-) Seriously, it's obviously hard for me to be too objective about the MUCK, for obvious reasons; still, I think the thing that most stands out for me is just how long it's been going, and how steadily. It's had its share of drama, to be sure, and there are still occasional flare-ups — but to realize that it's been running for almost twenty years now, that there are people on the MUCK who literally weren't born when it started... that part still astounds me. 5. Insane aptitude at word puzzles I'm not sure I know what you're talking about. :-) I think a lot of it is the 'someone better' phenomenon; I'm good at word puzzles, in some cases very good — but there's pretty incontrovertible evidence that there are a lot of people better than I am, whether it's PuzzleHunt-style word puzzles, or Scrabble, or heck, even Boggle. That said — I think a lot of it comes from having a strangely-indexed memory, and a lot of that may come from having done a lot of this when I was younger; I have a pretty good recollection of word patterns, and probably some unconscious mnemonics that make it that much easier to remember. I've actually noticed some of this — the patterns particularly — when playing Boggle; I tend to find particularly fertile prefixes or endings (e.g., 'ENT' at the end of a word, or 'ST' at the start) and just start hooking those together, or seeing what else they hook into. It gets me a lot of words, but also means I can miss words like 'STOIC' or even 'JAW' that just don't fit into convenient patterns. Bonus: "If you could be any kind of character in any sort of animated feature, what would you be and why?" I've been gnawing at this one for a long time, and come up wholly short on good answers, so I'm going to fall back onto the weird and say "one of the hyperbolic dodecahedra in Not Knot." You heard it here first. :-) Current Mood: meme-y (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 13th, 2009
8:44 am	5 things... ...for circuit_four, albeit a little bit late. 1. Combos Definitely a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they're generally a sign of emergent gameplay in a game; game objects (cards, pieces, what-have-you) working together in ways that weren't necessarily anticipated by the designer, at least in the details if not in the broad — designing for the possibility of combos is a different thing than designing specific combos into the game (the latter of which is usually just sloppy design). On the other hand, as they generally involve game elements doing things they weren't initially expected to do — turning drawbacks into advantages, bending obscure corners of the rules, etc — it's much easier for accidental degeneracy to slip in through combos than through most other elements of a game. Still, games without them tend to be more boring than games with them; more straightforward, often, and with a lesser breadth of strategy. It's interesting (to me, at any rate) that the only video games that generally speak of combos are fighting games, and in particular the 2-d Capcom fighters; if nothing else, it's another illustration of their slightly (and subtly) discrete nature compared to most other video games. 2. White Rappers There are some good ones out there; there are some horrible ones. One interesting (to me, at least) note: late-80s, there were basically two meaningful white rap outfits coming out of NYC: the Beastie Boys and 3rd Bass. Of the two, 3rd Bass was a lot closer to the 'core' hip-hop scene; they were in with Prince Paul and De La Soul, in with KMD (from whom MF DOOM eventually sprang); they had guest appearances from Chubb Rock and Nice & Smooth, Nas' first appearance was on a 3rd Bass song, etc etc. The Beasties, on the other hand, seem almost to go it alone: Q-Tip shows up eventually, but not until their 3rd or 4th 'rap' album, once they've pretty well established themselves. 3rd Bass was making basically the same core NY hip-hop as everyone else was; the Beasties were off in their own world somewhere — and they're the ones still cranking out new material, 20 years(!) on... 3. Acid Rain Much more serious than people gave it credit for, I think, or even than they do now. The problem has been mitigated a fair bit and isn't quite the crisis it was... but when you're looking regularly at rainfall with a pH in the low 4s, it's hard to see how that could not have a pretty substantial impact. This was our first environmental test, and from here at least it feels like we flunked it. 4. Minds Ummmm... awfully broad subject, this one. :-) I have to admit to being somewhat of mixed minds (pun not really intended); on the one hand, they can be devious things — it often feels like they're working counter to our best interests, like they've got their own plans, their own way of running the show, and who told you you could have any say in it just because it's your body? On the other hand... I'm awfully find of mine, and I have to admit that I can't imagine I'd be where I am today without it, so I owe it an awful lot. And yes, I'm very much in the habit of anthropomorphizing my mind as a thing unto itself, distinct from 'me'; I'm not sure whether that says more about it, or me... 5. Bread Pudding I used to be more of a fan than I am; I've probably been turned off because of the sheer quantity of mediocre bread pudding I've had. It's altogether too easy for it to come out altogether too dense and heavy, especially once it's cooled. On the other hand, a good one is still a wonder; my preferred way for cooking french toast is effectively just a bread pudding with one big chunk of bread — soak the bread in a custard solution overnight and bake, rather than pan-frying it — and it comes out absolutely amazing. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 9th, 2009
11:19 am	Spring has Sprung Current Mood: snowy (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
12:29 am	Totally Insane... ...in a little less than 10 hours, six of my closest friends and I, headed by the ever-amazing aprivatefox and mufi and accompanied by five people I don't know as well (teams have to be an even dozen), will be trekking over to the Microsoft campus to play in the latest Puzzle Hunt. It's going to be totally insane. It's going to be absurdly stressful. It's going to be a blast. Wish us luck!! Current Mood: nervous (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 19th, 2009
11:15 pm	Real quick question for my friends out there... So on the off chance that I were to pick up an (Intel) Mac Mini, does anyone out there have the Apple contacts to hook me up with a reasonably inexpensive version of Leopard (OSX 10.5)? Just wondering... (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
12:46 am	My problem in a nutshell... IMing with a friend as I was leaving work today: "So what're your plans for the evening?" "Not much, really. Heading home and fixing up dinner, then baking a few dozen cookies for friends. I have some puzzle stuff I'll probably poke at for a while, and I should do a load or two of laundry while I'm at it." Yeah, I apparently need to recalibrate my definition of 'not much'. Granted that this is a pretty atypical evening of 'not much' — it's still all too easy for me to underestimate just how much goes into an average 'boring' night. Worth keeping in mind. Current Mood: pensive (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
6:19 pm	Tastiest Meme ever! Nommed from liralen: The first five people who respond to this post (and repost in their own journal, natch, though I'll gladly make exceptions for circumstance) will get a batch of cookies, made by me, brought or delivered to their house sometime in 2009. Because the world needs more cookies. Current Mood: memeish Current Music: "C Is For..." (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
8:27 am	Off the road again! Well, we made it back safely last night, and even in time to eat dinner at home — after which I promptly crashed on the sofa for the next couple of hours, leaving myself awkwardly awake at 1AM. Feh. I wound up sleeping sketchily on the sofa most of the night, but I'm awake enough for now at least; hopefully that'll last. The drive went as smoothly as could've been hoped — we wound up doing more of it yesterday (as opposed to Monday) than I wanted, but still got home early enough that there was no hazard. The con was a blast, too, and our hosts were wonderfully gracious; but more on that later. For now, alas, a deep immersion back into work and non-con (as it were) reality... (EDIT: Oh, and the final tally: 60 banker's boxes of books and games of various sorts, 25 long boxes of comics and magazines, four bookshelves, a short stack of framed artwork, two uncut sheets of Magi-Nation, an Atari Football machine, a queen-sized mattress, and a partridge in a pear tree. I wound up having to go from my expected 10' van to a 17-footer and while we could've packed more in, it was still surprisingly snug. Oy... ) Current Mood: mixed (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 26th, 2009
6:14 pm	On the road again! Jeff and I will be heading off momentarily -- as soon as I finish the last drips and drabs of packing -- to lug the last of my stuff from my storage facility (along with a handful of surprise bonus boxes!) up from San Jose to Seattle. I'll try and keep my Twitter account updated every couple of hours -- keep an eye on it if you want to know where we are! The tentative plan is to stop around Yreka or so for the night, then tackle another 500ish miles tomorrow; they're two big chunks, but two manageably large chunks. I'll keep you all posted! Current Mood: moving (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
7:17 pm	My impressions in two short sentences President Bush asked us to trust him. President Obama is asking us to help him. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 15th, 2009
9:53 pm	Glah -- last-minute con room request So quarrel and I will be making it down to FC, after all; plane tickets turned out to be cheap enough, and it's finally an opportunity for me to unload my storage facility now that we have the space in the house here to stuff all the junk that's in storage for now (even if it *does* involve a 15-hour drive north from San Jose). Unfortunately, the decision came way too late (waaaaaay too late) to get a room at the con hotel, or apparently anywhere near the con hotel, so I'm casting my lot to LiveJournal -- anyone out there have enough space to put up a couple of itinerant Seattleites making a sporadic, swallow-like return to the Bay Area? We'd be getting in Thursday evening, and need space most likely through Sunday night/Monday morning -- and conceivably one more day, though with any choice I'd much rather take off Monday afternoon and split the drive. I'd obviously be more than happy to financially cover my share of any space available... many thanks in advance for the aid! Current Mood: finger-crossing (3 Comments |Comment on this)