MuseBlog

Let us know when your issue arrives.

NO SPOILERS, please. There’s another thread for discussing the issue.

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Talk Like a Pirate Day 2010 may be just a happy memory, but you salty sea dogs still have an excuse to party. The conservation group Whale Times has declared today (October 20) “Hagfish Day” to celebrate all weird and/or ugly denizens of the sea. The group’s website (at www . whaletimes . org/HagfishDay . htm) features a gallery of underwater grotesques and directions for hagfish-related activities, some of them involving copious quantities of slime (a hagfish hallmark). Altogether Muserly, we deem.

You’ve planned it, and now the time has come. Let the revels begin!

Two GAPAs will be traveling on Monday (October 11), so delayed moderation is a distinct possibility for much of the day.

MuseBlog is sorry for the inconvenience, which is due to its moderators’ possessing physical bodies that need to be laboriously transported from place to place. In the future, the Administrators hope to exchange their cumbersome proton-and-neutron-based bodies for electron-based models that can be transported at near-instantaneous speeds via wireless networks. Until the upgrade is complete, similar slowdowns are bound to occur from time to time, and we entreat your understanding.

Imagine there were no Beatles? We can’t begin.

Brainstorming for National Novel-Writing Month, which coincides with November. If you’re unfamiliar with it, NaNoMuBlo-ers will be happy to explain.

Picture and theme coming soon! Meanwhile, jabber away.

(Users’ Manual: Obey The Rules. Consult The Guide. Have fun!

If you’re new on the blog, please stop by this thread and say pie — er, hi.

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Known Muser birthdays and “K Days” this month*:

10-01 Kiki the Great’s birthday (1995 – black and red)
10-01 Cliff Eagle’s 6K Day
10-09 Gimanator’s birthday (1993 – purple)
10-09 Bismarck’s birthday
10-10 Keiffer’s 5K Day
10-12 Ebeth’s birthday (1991 – blue or octarine)
10-13 Paul Baker’s birthday
10-16 Kagcomix’s birthday (1993 – green)
10-19 LittleBasementKitten’s birthday (1997)
10-20 Goldendoodle’s birthrday (1994 – evergreen and gold)
10-23 kokopelli #13’s birthday (1992 – camouflage)
10-25 Red-tailed HAWK’s birthday (1994 – blue)
10-25 Randomosity 101’s birthday (1995 – blue, green, orange, and black)
10-25 Nthanda the Laugher’s 7K Day

You turn 5,000 days old this month if you were born between and January 23 and February 22, 1997.
You turn 6,000 days old this month if you were born between April 29 and May 29, 1994.
You turn 7,000 days old this month if you were born between August 3 and September 2, 1991.

You will have been on MuseBlog for six months if you started posting in April.

*Note: Listed MBers who have been inactive for several months won’t appear on next year’s birthday calendar unless they show up again.

MA’s big annual autumn event is fast approaching, so it’s time to start nailing down some details. Creativity is encouraged, but remember: Muse Academy and all its functions are subject to physical laws and contemporary technology. No antigravity or unlimited sources of free energy, please!

Here’s how the ball unfolded last year.

WARNING! Will definitely contain spoilers!

To spare MBers reading the “Recent Comments” columns, please paste the following message in at the beginning of your posts:

SPOILER MUSE SPOILER MUSE SPOILER MUSE SPOILER MUSE SPOILER.

Let us know when your issue arrives.

NO SPOILERS, please. There’s another thread for discussing the issue.

The autumnal equinox takes place at 10:09 p.m. tonight (blogtime). To our European friends, it will be early Thursday morning. And down in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s spring! All very confusing, but that’s life.

Who can explain why these threads are so popular? We sure can’t.

The rules: Pick a pseudonym; guess who the other pseudonymous posters are while they try to guess you. That’s all there is to it.

Continued from 2010.1.

REMINDER: Check your posts before sending them — the preview button is useful for that. The Administrators will not rescue you if you accidentally submit one under your “real” blogname or post elsewhere with your alter ego.

By popular request. We’ve had Factoids threads before, but the Trivia-Off component is new.

Here’s how you’ve probably been told to study: Pick a special place for studying, and stick with it. Focus on one thing at a time. And remember your learning style (visual, right-brain, left-brain, etc.).

Wrong, wrong, wrong, say a couple of studies of studying, recently reported in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html). When psychologists examine how people really learn things, a lot of popular, well-meaning advice turns out to be wrong. Variety, it turns out, works a lot better than repetitive, blinkered drilling. Vary the place, vary the material (as athletes and musicians have been doing for a long time). And so a new strain of well-meaning advice is born.

Now that you’re back in school and hitting your stride, we figured you’d have something to say on this topic. What have you been told about studying? What do you actually do? How do you like the results?

Attention, MuseBloggers!

Just to be annoying for fun, we’ve decided to keep our English-to-Pirate translation plug-in running for an extra day. During that time, everything you post will automatically turn into pirate-speak. If you find that obnoxiously distracting, that’s the idea we’re sorry. Everything will be back to normal (or at least “normal”) on Tuesday, unless we change our minds.

It be today. Yarrrr!
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A thread for exploring other ways things might have turned out, if the past had taken a different turn. Steampunk is one subgenre.

(Counterfactual: contrary to fact, not the way things actually are; retro: backward; future: future.)

We could be wrong, but we don’t think the requesters intended this to be an RPG.

All you really need to know is that it’s not about Percy Jackson and that it’s continued from Part 3.

As has become traditional, we’re posting the random thread with a generic name and without art to give our brilliant but perpetually frazzled illustrator a chance to catch up on her sleep. The name and theme will become apparent within a day or two. Meanwhile, the random craziness will proceed as usual.

(Users’ Manual: Obey The Rules. Consult The Guide. Have fun

If you’re new on the blog, please stop by this thread and say pie — er, hi.

Read more »

Known Muser birthdays this month*:

09-01 Ambystoma Maculatum (1996 – purple and green)
09-03 SudoRandom’s 5K Day
09-04 Kokopelli52 (1997 – clear turquoise)
09-05 nolagirl7’s 5K Day
09-06 Beetles
09-06 Lizzie’s 7K Day
09-11 POSOC’s 6K Day
09-15 The Man For Aeiou’s birthday (1995 – Muse Shirts)
09-17 Iamisthebest (1996 – blue and black)
09-17 Castle’s birthday (1997 – blue/rainbow)
09-18 Sweet Melpomene’s birthday (1990 – black-and-white)
09-19 marfwarrior’s birthday (1995 – green with multicolored flecks)
09-22 qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm (1999) [a.k.a. dimond and Catkopelli]
09-24 Zinc the Sorceress’s birthday (1997 – black and “highliter”)
09-24 Piggy’s 6K Day
09-29 Zoe’s 6K Day

You turn 5,000 days old this month if you were born between December 24, 1996, and January 22, 1997.
You turn 6,000 days old this month if you were born between March 30 and April 28, 1994.
You turn 7,000 days old this month if you were born between July 4 and August 2, 1991.

You will have been on MuseBlog for six months if you started posting in March.

*Note: Listed MBers who have been inactive for several months won’t appear on next year’s birthday calendar unless they show up again.

WARNING! Will definitely contain spoilers!

To spare MBers reading the “Recent Comments” columns, please paste the following message in at the beginning of your posts:

SPOILER MUSE SPOILER MUSE SPOILER MUSE SPOILER MUSE SPOILER.