MuseBlog

All right, it doesn’t quite rhyme. So sue us. This thread can still be very helpful to newcomers who need a little orientation and a faceful plateful of pie. Come in and say hi!

Please read The Rules. You might also glance at The HG2MB (Hitchhiker’s Guide to MuseBlog), which contains helpful hints regarding local customs, lingo, and other peculiarities of the blog; smiley information included.

Help others navigate the blog by signposting your favorite threads here.

(Note: Please include the URL (Web address) with your requests. It also helps if you limit your requests to a few at a time, four or five at the most.)

Current categories:

ADVENTURES IN THE MUSIVERSE
Ships’ Logs (kiwimuncher, Red-tailed HAWK)
Pieceful Pie Planet (Kokonilly)
Chronicles of Museica (Red-tailed HAWK)
Muse Academy (Red-tailed HAWK)

LIFE BEYOND THE VIRTUAL DIVIDE
Romance & Relationships (treble_cone_freeskier!)
Advice (Unintended Pun)

SILLY FUN
You Know You’re Addicted to X, When You Y (treble_cone_freeskier!, Red-tailed HAWK)
The Polling Place (kiwimuncher, Red-tailed HAWK)
Ask the GAPAs (Red-tailed HAWK)
Ble! Newluj — No Fulst (groundhog22)

WRITING – RRRs
The Sea Roc (kiwimuncher)
RRR SMAS-TT (Cat’s Meow)

WRITING – ASSORTED OTHER
Writing Challenge (oxlin)
Muse FanFiction (Cinnamoon)
Poetry (Agrrrfishi)

OTHER THINGS WE LIKE
Music (Kari)
Books & Reading (oxlin)
Cooking & Food (Red-tailed HAWK)
Visual Arts (Red-tailed HAWK)

With the “Recent Comments” sidebar temporarily (we hope) out of commission, here’s a workaround for telling your fellow MBers where you’ve been posting.

Known Muser birthdays this month:*

03-01 Cat’s Meow’s birthday (1995 – orange)
03-04 emmatheduck’s birthday (1993 – purplecarroty)
03-07 Arianhrod of Orkney’s birthday
03-13 Magus’s birthday (1992)
03-21 M & M’s birthday (1993 – rainbow)
03-22 Violetfire’s birthday (1994 – violet)
03-23 MontgomeryGurl’s birthday (1991 – blue, sky or light)
03-23 Daisy*chain’s birthday
03-25 Necromancer’s birthday
03-25 hedgehogboy5’s birthday
03-26 Shadowkat’s birthday (1991 – black, purple, and silver)
03-26 Birthday of Queen Francois the first (1994 – pink)
03-29 Luna the Lovely (formerly Michelle W.)’s birthday (1990 – pink + light blue)
03-30 Pyro’s birthday
03-30 gradster’s birthday (1993)

You turn 5,000 days old this month if you were born between June 24 and and July 24, 1994.
You turn 6,000 days old this month if you were born between September 28 and October 28, 1991.

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

…Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.”

That’s the prize-winning mnemonic that a 10-year-old girl in Montana came up with for keeping straight the planets and dwarf planets of the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Eris.

The news story doesn’t say whether she’s a Muser, but it seems likely. You can read about it here (spaces have been added to the URL, as usual, to keep spambots from tracing links back to us):

www.space. com/news/ap-080227-planet-mnemonic-contest. html

Of course, we’d be interested in hearing about any other good mnemonics you’ve learned or invented.

February 29 is rarer than a day in June, though less rare than February 30 (which never comes at all). Conservationists are marking the occasion this year by kicking off the Year of the Frog — not to be confused with the Year of the Rat on the Chinese calendar, which, confusingly, this also is.

Leap Day is also the traditional day when women may propose marriage to men (or, presumably, ask them out) — something that maidenly modesty forbids the other 99.9452% of the time.

How was your Leap Day?

It’s been a while since the last time we had a thread on this ever-popular topic.

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 SPOILER MARCH MUSE SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

Let us know when your issue arrives. NO SPOILERS, please. There’s another thread for discussing the issue.

It’s visible from the eastern half of North America to Western Europe, and points south. Worth a look if it’s not too cloudy where you are. Details are available at NASA’s eclipse page (delinked version below; paste it into your browser, and delete the spaces before “gov” and “html”):

sunearth.gsfc.nasa. gov/eclipse/lunar. html

What are hot-pink bunnies? Where do they come from? What do they want? This unflinching thread continues the investigation detailed in Part One.

WARNING: Potentially disturbing content within.

It must be frustrating to turn 199 and realize that the really big party is a year off.

The February Random Thread: don’t try this at home!

Continued from Part the First.

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

A thread for discussing non-romantic relationships.

Continued from Just Friends, Part 2.

The end of the latest Classic Pie War marked a new chapter in the Musiverse. The turning point came here. This thread continues the story.

Today begins the Year of the Rat on the Chinese lunar calendar. How do you plan to celebrate the noble rodent?

Sometimes life just seems too much. Too many obligations, and not enough time. Too much work, not enough fun. What do you do then? What works best to get you back on track?

Neither long ago nor far in the future, in a galaxy — who knows? Maybe this one. Anyway, it’s a pleasant place to be.

Continued from Part 7.

Here is the OFFICIAL ROSTER OF PPP PWNERs:

1. Tupisodaloric Groves – ΡÖŞΏĈ
2. Beevlonic Island archipeligo – Beavo
3. Feather and its two sister countries, Spinach and PPP 2 – The Man For Aeiou
4. Taruva – Cat’s Meow
5. Kokonillendor – Kokonilly
6. Duckland – Emmatheduck
7. Good Karmalot – beatlesrockr
8. New Atlantis – Alice

MOONS
1. Milkshake Moon – ¡Í߀ƒ!

‘Way back at the dawn of history (April 2006, to be precise), your beneficent GAPAs proclaimed that “real” online wars would be banned from the blog but permitted MBers to engage in fantasy pie wars.

Since then, we’ve gradually relaxed that policy. MBers on “Pie War” threads have introduced swords, armor, explosives, and other accoutrements of warfare camouflaged with pielike names. Saying that a weapon is made of pietanium, however, doesn’t make it pastry — especially when the MBer bearing the weapon uses it to maim and slaughter. The results have been a steady string of duels, massacres, and assassinations on the threads and some nasty personal disputes behind the scenes — all highly unMuselike, and excruciatingly boring to anyone not directly involved.

Therefore, we are reasserting our original anti-war policy and taking steps to enforce it. The pie war thread in question will be closed to further comments. So will the hidden Jadestone and Glassboro Planning Thread (though we will still visit it occasionally to hear the singing bunnies). Attempts to continue the war or arguments about it on other threads will be ruthlessly suppressed. If you’re scrapping for a fight, go to World of Warcraft or some other site. That’s not what we’re about here. We have spoken.

–The Administrators

Muse‘s very own language, which Nak unleashed on the world in the November/December 2003 issue.

Continued.

Please report to the Neophytes thread.

Tasting colors, seeing musical tones — in general, perceiving anything through the “wrong” sensory channel — has fascinated scientists since they first identified it in the 19th century. Several MuseBloggers appear to have experienced it firsthand. Here’s a thread for discussing it, by special request of Faye Beauchamp.

Those of you who don’t have time to follow and take part in the role-playing game might still manage to scribble a few lines to the folks back a home. E-mail messages are acceptable too, of course.

It was a hit last year and is bound to be again. Here’s how we described it then:

“Physiognomy” (which rhymes, sort of, with “Frog? Nah, me.”) is a fancy word for face. Here, by popular request, is a thread whereon MuseBloggers can guess what other MBers look like.

*Role-Playing Game, of course.

By overwhelming popular demand.