The Palantir Hatchery

Various discussion various places about fandom being unwelcoming to teens. Which in some ways it is, and where it is, it's stupid. But I wanted to bring several responses together and thought I'd make it a post.

There seems to be a general attitude in this discussion that fandom is full of people who are terribly ageist and unwilling to value young people's opinions. I believe this is a misperception. While certainly there are some of those people, by and large fandom, like any other large group of people, is full of jerks who aren't interested in valuing anybody's opinions. It isn't possible to outgrow these people's contempt; they'll just phrase it differently later.

At some point anyone who wants to be a part of fandom is going to have to deal with the existence of those people, and putting it off just makes it harder. There are plenty of strategies available, but all of them basically boil down to recognizing that the people who respect you are your actual audience, and to hell with the rest of them.

This problem with this misperception is that it seems to lead to the idea that the people in your age cohort are the ones who will respect you and those outside it will not. Whereas I think if you stop to think about this for a minute, you'll recognize that there are plenty of people in your age cohort who couldn't give a damn about what you think, they just express it differently. So if you segregate, you don't solve the problem, but you certainly do deprive those of us who are interested in what you have to say of worthwhile perspectives. It's a lose-lose proposition.

Just a random LJ post. I guess at this point I've been hanging around here enough that I may as well be back. I don't know what that's going to mean for my posting style going forward, though.

1. I've kind of gotten into Le Tour this year. Not sure why, really, other than I've been awake in the early morning when most poker games die and there's not much to do but watch people bicycle around France. What I don't get is the stopping and staying in hotels and taking planes and all starting again at the same time later thing. This is the problem with being an adventure racing fan first, I imagine. I'd much rather tell them they have to bicycle around France, hitting certain checkpoints, and let them decide when and how they're going to rest. More fun strategy that way. Of course these guys might pedal around in a pack anyway.

1a. Also, all this controversy over whether they can use race radios gave me a much better idea if they want to restrict technology: a throwback stage. Have one day a year when they have to ride using 1903 technology. Maybe make an exception for modern helmets. That would be so much fun it might even attract new people to the sport.

2. I've spent the last couple of days playing SkyWar, the newest Motion Twin game, which is a long-term RTS concept that's kind of intriguing. Combining RTS with the Motion Twin online timewaster model means airships take hours to get from island to island, and everything is generally slowly paced for that sort of game. It reminds me a lot of Star Wars: Rebellion, which is not a good sign for its popularity. It's similar in the term of the contest, in that the actual battles are all computer-generated, and also that it's much easier to play defense than offense. I like it well enough, but I'm going to give up after winning the only game I play because I can't relax and give up the edge of paying attention to it all the time, so it's a huge timesink. I have a major attack in four minutes, best hurry up this entry.

3. Have not been taking photos much. Missed post-4th Street outing with dd_b and Ctein because of exhaustion, and the recovery from that continues to be very slow. Note to self: keep surgery and cons farther apart in future.

4. Byerly's had Keta salmon yesterday, so I bought some. Not a win. Tested it, and we're having something else for lunch. I think I'm going to be sticking to sockeye from now on.

5. We have a new air conditioner, and it actually cools my bedroom! The change is kind of amazing, actually.

Ctein writes a really awesome post about preparing to photograph a potential Betelgeuse supernova.

mrissa: If the world was arranged around me, everyone would have had poutine specials the last week. And then we could see, like, how Cam Ranh Bay does poutine.
timprov: We could go get beef broccoli and put it on some french fries.
mrissa: That's OK, I already have plans for dinner tonight.

I was pretty much giving up on scorers when Cammalleri went to the Habs. This was a pretty nice second best. Almost as good as the Rangers paying an insane amount of money to ensure we don't have to deal with Gaborik anymore. (Though that is what the Rangers are for, after all.)

Still one Koivu short, though.

Ladies and gentlemen, the first Senator from Trading Places.

Eddie Murphy, I'm lookin' at you.

( Bodog promo in my mailbox today )

I still don't really have a long-term solution for what to do with my photos, but I've accumulated something of a critical mass of portraits that ought to be shown somewhere. So I'm going to. Photos of, among others, aliseadae, beenasjournal, bridragon, jonsinger, krittersjournal, ladysea, markgritter, missista, mmerriam, mormor1, mrissa, papersky, porphyrin, silentcal, and spuddragon. You guys can figure out which is which, right?

( Many portraits )
ETA: Credit on the last photo (now missing) to cloudscudding, who had my camera at that point.
ETA2: I've removed all Fourth Street photographs. Sorry.

Well I've sung this song, but I'll sing it again
Of the people I've met, and the places I've been
Some of the troubles that bothered my mind
And a lot o' good people that I've left behind

Singin' so long, it's been good to know ya
So long, it's been good to know ya
So long, it's been good to know ya
This dusty old dust is gettin' my home
And I've gotta be driftin' along.

1. OK, I'm officially tired of all the Watchmen references now.

2. Today had whatever that feeling is that makes it feel like spring is coming, as opposed to all the previous warm days, which were obviously just taunting. I'm sure it will get worse before it gets good yet, but it's nice to see some progress. Sadly I spent most of it inside.

3. My coaching session went well. I'm probably going to do more of it, if there's anything like a market. Which I'm kind of skeptical about.

4. Can we just save the part where I'm dreading Todd Bertuzzi getting his evil hands on the Stanley Cup, and move on to trying to forget it? Why were the Flames the only team who bothered to show up for the trade deadline? At least they acquired Jordan Leopold, so the assholes are more concentrated. (Similarly, Sean Avery to New York.) I'm afraid I'm going to end up having to hope Detroit wins for reasons other than Starbuck being a Red Wings fan.

5. Six episodes into season 4 of BSG and I'm very close to actually saying "I'm tired of Roslyn and Adama, give me more Baltar." There have been some really awesome moments so far, moments that made watching the whole series worth it, and I guess I can't really complain about the show making no sense at this point, since I keep watching it.

So because markgritter was sick tonight, I ended up taking Ista for her walk. There wasn't really a lot of point in trying to go anywhere off the cul-de-sac, what with eight inches of fresh snow. So I walked her down to the end of the street, and decided to run her back up. It's maybe 150 feet, and we'd been plowed out recently enough that it was that quarter-inch of new wet snow on asphalt that is basically the perfect running surface. And that pretty much wiped me out for the rest of the evening. At the end of it I was gasping for breath for quite a while, and I've been coughing quite a bit throughout the rest of the night.

I was feeling pretty down about my general level of conditioning and basically like I'd squandered all the recovery progress I've made over the last few years, until I stopped to think about it and realized that the last time I remember being able to run that distance flat-out without similar results was 1987. So maybe it's not such a step back after all.

It's probably a sign I should do something about getting the adenoid/tongue surgery I need to fix my airflow problems, though.

Poll #1355075
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

When I think of "All Along the Watchtower" I think of the version done by:

It's the second annual International Email Me About Something Interesting Day. I've even caught up on my outstanding emails this afternoon so I don't have to feel bad about posting it.

timprov@gmail.com

mrissa, freshly home:

"Robin, someday when you're older, we will tell you about the Clinton Presidency. But right now we'll just fix the robot."

Wild 5, Red Wings 2. I don't know where this team came from, but they're pretty good. I hope they stick around.

Somebody threw an octopus, presumably to taunt the Wings.

Everyone knows how this is played, right? We don't need no stinking instructions. I've replaced a few of the dumber questions from the version I got.

1. Can you cook?
2. What was your dream growing up?
3. What talent do you wish you had?
4. What's your most important place to take someone who means a lot to you?
5. Favorite vegetable?
6. What was the last book you read?
7. Favorite restaurant?
8. Any Tattoos and/or Piercings?
9. Worst Habit?
10. Do we know each other outside of lj?
11. What is your favorite sport?
12. Negative or Optimistic attitude?
13. Favorite musician?
14. Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15. Tell me one weird fact about you:
16. Do you have any pets?
17. What's your favorite place to be in the spring?
18. In the fall?
19. in the winter?
20. If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21. Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22. What color eyes do you have?
23. Ever been... arrested?
24. Bottle or Draft?
25. If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
26. What if it was $10,000,000?
27. What should question 27 be? Answer it.
28. Do you believe in ghosts?
29. Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
30. Do you swear a lot?
31. Biggest pet peeve?
32. In one word, how would you describe yourself?
33. Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?

I don't think I can handle doing an overview of the last year. I'd much rather go to the zoo.

Life begins where manuscripts end, right?

I decided, since I'm here by myself, that I'd go a bit overboard on my dinner tonight. The lineup:

Fresh baguette with kalamata olive tapenade
Fresh strawberries
Red and yellow beets, roasted with garlic and fresh ginger, with strawberry-blueberry cream
Dry-aged T-bone steak with sauteed mushrooms
Tamari Reserva Malbec 2006

I had dug a bottle of 5-puttonyos Tokay out of the back of the liquor cabinet, from whatever birthday it was we served it to everybody - my 26th, I guess. But having been open for four years or so it was not in any shape to be drunk. I'm not going to break open the more recent bottle of six, but I'm kind of missing dessert at the moment. I do have most of a pint of organic cream that needs to be used, maybe I'll work something up.