“Leonard,” Mr. Jerris said, when we went in his office, “we’ve started a corrective gym class. It’s for kids there’s something wrong with–bad posture, fallen arches, and kids who aren’t regular–like you–I mean–no offense, Leonard, but you don’t really want to climb ropes, and get into the Marine Corps, and kill your country’s enemies, do you?”
I said that it wasn’t one of the big goals of my life.
Daniel Pinkwater is weird. His books are weird: well-known ones include The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death; Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars; Fat Men from Space; and Borgel. His protagonists are misfits, intelligent, creative, anti-authoritarian, and, one suspects, slightly autobiographical. Reoccurring characters include giant talking lizards, the Chicken man who wears a live chicken as a hat, Rolzup, the prime minister of Mars, and any number of incompetent, crazy, and/or boring high school teachers. His children’s books tend to have cars or fat pirates from space. His young adult novels are counter-cultural and subversive, in a weird way. In Fat Camp Commandos, for example, the protagonists, miffed at being sent to a weight-loss camp, escape and declare war on fat-prejudice. In Borgel, the protagonist runs away with his Uncle Borgel in a trek across space that ends with their literally finding God (who turns out to be a orange popsicle). His adult novels – which are almost nonfiction – tend to talk a lot about dogs – training them, living with them, communing with them.
Daniel Pinkwater is funny. His books are absurd. He uses silly sounding names. A former art major, he illustrates his own picture books and sometimes you wish he wouldn’t. As a misfit kid myself, growing up a queer, intellectual, non-athletic, Jewish atheist in the football-and-Bible part of Texas, his books gave me a community of weirdos and eccentric older relatives that I was lacking in my own life. They gave me the encouragement to do what I wanted, wear what I wanted, not care what other people thought of me. Plus, they’re really incredibly entertaining.
Wasn’t Daniel Pinkwater the author who wrote the “Hare and The Pineapple” story that was on some standardized test a couple years ago? I remember hearing about it somewhere. Maybe it was on Last Week Tonight. Does anyone watch Last Week Tonight? It’s hilarious.
Kind of! In his book Borgel he wrote a fable about a rabbit and an eggplant, with the moral “never bet on an eggplant,” which got adapted for the test. He talks about it here: http:// www. pinkwater. com/ the- story-behind-the- pineapple-and-the-hare/
That happened with a couple of my Muse articles: the testing company phoned and asked whether it could adapt parts of them for standardized reading tests. It was a nice surprise, a little extra money for no extra work.
Hm. If I ever see a passage that you wrote, I’ll let you know. And I’ll tell you if the questions made sense at all.
Hi guys.
So, the other day the only friend I have in the world who lives in Australia told me that his computer, which is the only way he can contact me, was borrowed to him by his school, and he has to send it back when he finishes school. He finishes his school by the end of October.
I can talk with the only friend I have in the world until October, and then he’ll be taken away from me.
I dread October.
I hate October.
I don’t want us to be separated.
Help.
I bet Australia has public libraries with computers.
Actually no, not in his area. He told me that the only library where he lives was torn down one year after a bad storm wrecked most of it.
To be blunt, from the outside it sounds like he’s playing you. In my experience, a lot of communication difficulties can be resolved if the person really wants to. I mean, it’s 2015 and this person has only one way, which was loaned to him, of accessing the internet?
Let’s just say his parents aren’t the nicest nor richest people in the world.
sounds like a perfect time to work on cultivating new friendships
I have to agree with this. I’m sorry, it’s harsh but it’s fair. I moved three times to completely different places as a kid and started college without knowing a single person on campus — I know it’s hard to start over. And as oxlin says, Australia probably has free computer access somewhere (unless he’s living in a kangaroo in the Outback, which seems unlikely to me). This sounds like a great time to try to branch out and meet new people. I know it’s really scary, but maybe try floating around groups at school until you find some people you click with?
Guess what? I’m gonna write a novel that is over 40,000 words by October 1st!
I just have to write about 2,000 words a day!
Wow, good luck!
keep us updated on your progress.
Last night I got up to 2,012 words in my first chapter, and the first chapter isn’t quite done yet. I wish I had a co-author to help look over it, but all of them either decided they don’t like me and don’t want to be my friend anymore or they are just too busy with other things to read such long passages… And since I have my school program, I won’t be working on it again until way later in the day.
Wow, nice! What’s it about, or do you know yet?
(there is a writing thread somewhere on here but no promises anyone will have time to read it)
It’s about a girl named Timber and her friend named PineCone. Timber’s mother is human but her father(who was killed in my first story)was a wolf. Nobody except for PineCone likes Timber because she’s so different. She’s on a quest to find her missing twin who’s name is Lillian and to help her friend PineCone save the world from a darkness that someone(not gonna spoil it. XD)released.
My internship ends this Thursday and today we had an all-hands meeting in which my mentor spoke very proudly of my accomplishments this summer, how the code I’ve written has been used by customers, and how I had the wonderful experience of going to a conference with the company (which is a first for the company, taking an intern to a conference!). It was very kind and he said he would be thrilled to have me back. The CEO echoed his sentiments and I felt all warm and fuzzy inside.
He later said “Did I sufficiently embarrass you at the all-hands?” and I said yes, thank you, those were incredibly nice things of him to say… and he said that it was no problem, it was easy saying such nice things because they were true. :’)
I’ve had such a great experience this summer! I would gladly go back to work full-time and I’m so glad they’ve essentially given me a return offer.
Wow, that’s awesome! Congratulations on doing such a good job!
Congratulations! Well deserved, I am sure. What exactly were you working on?
Y’all, don’t look back at posts you made 6 years ago. Just…. don’t do it. (yes I did just make the terrible decision to look back at some of my posts from when I was 12. *cringe*)
(also consider this to be my official apology to anyone who was around then and remembers what I was like. I’m so, so sorry.)
We’ve all been terrible. Fortunately, we were terrible in a wonderfully supportive place where we all stayed friends despite it all.
Rainbow*Storm Greatest Hits (to be mentally recited while lying in bed at night to a soundtrack of Gary Jules’ Mad World):
– Who’s J. R. R. Tolkien?
– Has anybody else read this obscure book called Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?
– Wait, Carl Sagan died?
– Can we have a Warrior Cats RPG even though the GAPAs have said no multiple times?
– I know exactly how to make this conversation that was in no way about Warrior Cats about Warrior Cats!
– 203862049586 RPG characters who were Mary Sue versions of myself, even in a story where the entire point is to avoid Mary Sues
– Owning a huge mansion with a sea lion tank in an RPG about a peaceful low-tech gardening village
Hey now, I had a sea jelly tank and a room full of scuba gear and nobody complained about that. The thing with Reclusive Gardens was that we didn’t pollute and didn’t have electronic communications, there was no limit on other tech.
Last day of work today. A week from tomorrow, I’ll be driving to the seminary. I don’t know whether I’ll be on the internet over breaks or not (the first year especially is pretty restrictive on that), but if I can, I’ll drop in around Christmastime. Next year I’ll try and pass along my seminary email address to someone as well. I trust that fireh will take care of things for me in my absence. God willing, in seven years I’ll be Fr. Piggy (unlike, but not totally unlike, Father Christmas).
Good luck, Piggy!
Good luck! Best wishes!
Can’t wait until we can call you Father Piggy!
Good luck!
Best wishes, Piggy!
Usually my family has ice cream or frozen yogurt to celebrate making it through the first day of class. The fro-yo place I was planning to go to turned out to be closed, so I had boba tea instead. Then I found a fro-yo store that was open on the way back to my dorm, but I was too full. At least I know where that one is for the future.
Wow so I finally have something to do this autumn! It still feels really weird knowing I’m not going back to school this year. This is the first year that I can remember that there’s no school! Everyone has that realization someday, but it’s the first time I had to really figure out what to do. …And I’ll be back to school next year (hopefully) so it’s not going to last long.
I’ll be interning in the botany department in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History! The lab does plant DNA barcoding and there are a couple different projects I can choose to work on. I’ll be working in analysis, too, so I won’t be just a lab grunt!!
Of course it’s unpaid… but maybe I’ll be able to get something better for winter/spring/summer with the Smithsonian name on my CV.
It’s super weird because the lab director chose me out of the general intern pool and it ended up being kind of what I wanted to do anyway?? And it seems like I was the only one she was talking to… She just called me up and said I could come and work if I wanted to.
So yeah I’m finally doing something!!! Besides working for my dad.
Wow, what a great job! Enjoy!
CONGRATS!!! I would LOVE to know more about the work you’re doing with plant DNA!!! A subject near and dear to my heart after my two years doing plant DNA & RNA labwork for a phylogenetics lab ♥
And WELL DONE getting a nice name on your CV!!
How long does your internship last? You say you’re looking for something else for next year, and I remember you mentioning somewhere you might be interested in fieldwork sometime too–I just did a small post on some of my experience with the Chicago Botanical Gardens CLM internship program, which pays well ($15/hour, 40hours/week, for 5 months), over on the Ask Me Anything thread. I think you’d definitely be qualified for one of these if you wanted one! Applications open up towards the end of November (and are accepted as long as positions are open until Jan 15th), and positions can start any time after that, although MOST are in the spring (when the plants start growin’!). Mine started in March.
Also, most positions have a possibility for extension or the people involved will try to point you somewhere helpful–they offered to rehire all the interns at my position for extra time, although I ended up applying for a different position with someone else we’d worked with over the summer, and they were super great about helping me navigate the complexity that is Government Job Applications and stuff.
No worries if it’s not something you think you’d be interested in–but I’d be happy to answer questions/talk more about it if you decide you ever are! It’s a fair bit away from labwork, and often they’re in the western US (although there are some eastern ones), but I did have a lot of fun with mine, and it’s definitely helped out my resume and also my bank account.
My new issue of Muse arrived today, and boy, what a surprise! It’s been redesigned, it’s focused entirely on science and technology, and it contains no Muses. Instead, there’s a comic about the adventures of a group of new students in a school that in some ways resembles Muse Academy. One panel even showed bunnies grazing on the lawn. They weren’t hot-pink — closer to mauve — but I’m going to keep an eye on them, just in case.
I hope the editors and readers have fun with the new Muse. It’s a whole new ballgame, that’s for sure.
Wait, what?
Seconding Kai–what??
In a word: yep. I speak sooth.
I had heard that the publishers planned to discontinue Odyssey, but it never occurred to me that de-Musifying Muse might be on the agenda.
I guess Odyssey just couldn’t survive without Jack Horkheimer…
Wow, that’s crazy! Did they remove the Kokopellis from the cover? Who’s drawing the comic now?
No Koko. The new comic, in a completely different style, is by Caanan Grall.
I flipped through this issue at the library yesterday– I don’t really have any complaints about the comic, it looks fun– I don’t suppose there’d be room for two separate strips, though?
What? I’m okay with there being a new cast, but I liked that Muse had interesting art and history as well as math and science.
And random things like guardrails. Does anyone else remember that article about guardrails? I got really into guardrails for a while because of it.
Yep! I still think of it sometimes when I see guardrails.
Actually, yes! Even though that issue is from 1998 or something, I think I got it handed down by an older cousin before I even got my own subscription. Isn’t it the issue about El Niño?
Woah there, I was only born in 1996. Don’t make me feel old for no reason
I don’t remember which issue it was in. Maybe it was around 2006?
Yeah, my first issues were in 1999 and I know the guardrail article, so I’d say 2006 is probably more accurate.
Okay, I dug out the 10th anniversary issue of Muse, which had the guardrail article re-printed in it, and it says that it was originally published in the October 1998 issue. The 10th anniversary issue is from 2007, so Kokonilly probably read it in that.
Also, wow, oxlin. You started reading Muse before at least a few MBers were even born.
Oh yes, it must have been in the 10th anniversary issue then. I don’t even know where my copies of Muse are anymore. I should probably try to dig them up…
I feel like I remember an issue that had an article on guardrails. And I just braved my closet (if you could see my bedroom, you’d understand the feat this is–I can barely squeeze between my largest Harry Potter cardboard display and my closet door to access my closet) to try to see what my earliest Muse was. It appears that March of 2001 is the earliest one (that I still have/could track down, anyway). So I guess maybe I read the reprint.
I also remember an article about how when mud dries it always forms hexagons and that being the easiest shape/path of least resistance, and talking about honeycombs, and that being why they were hexagonal, and that’s the earliest Muse article I remember reading.
And Kokonilly–1996? Please. You’re not old. You’re still a teenager! I was born in 1990 (and am done with college and doing grown up-y things. Just got home from a loooooong day of work, and it was technically a short day, but I’m sick and had some rude clients and one super aggressive dog and my fuse was really short, so today was not fun but I digress).
Haha, I know I’m not very old. I feel quite young most of the time. I’ll be done with college soon though!
My first Muse issue was the one about trompe-l’Å“ils. It had comics that could be read both upside-down and right-side-up, which I found completely fascinating.
YEsssss! That was the best part. Muse made you look at the world around you and think more deeply about it.
I’m tempted to make my own kid’s magazine as a project and make it like Muse as I remembered but… that sounds like a lot of work. However, if I get a job at a museum, I’m tempted to make some kind of online area for kids and teens and adults to learn about weird things like guardrails.
One of the great things about the Internet is that anybody can be a publisher. Being a self-sustaining publisher, however, is much harder. Talented, creative people still need to make a living, but readers tend to expect to get stuff free. That makes publishing a very frustrating business and drives publishes to do all sorts of strange things to stay afloat.
Yeah. That’s why, while I’d love to do this, it is on some kind of “maybe in the future” back burner. I know it will take a lot of time and energy that I don’t want to contribute by myself. If I were connected with a museum, and got them on board, maybe I could be not the only one working on it.
Yes, it’s great to have an institution backing you (and backing you up). Of course, then you’d probably find yourself getting drawn into fundraising — a job not for the faint-hearted.
Fundraising and grant writing are inevitable.
Well, then, more power to you!
And PB&J’s articles on things like priest holes, and neat little carvings in churches (I feel there was more to this article), and, well, really, just any article written by Paul always turned out to be a treat, b/c he always wrote such quirky little articles, and always threw a bit of humor in, and they were just fantastic.
Wow…. For some reason, I just assumed Muse would always be there, y’know? Well, I guess all the old issues I’ve stored will have to do for my kid(s).
It’s weird how detached MuseBlog has become from Muse over the years. Most of the userbase is older than the magazine’s target audience, we haven’t had issue discussion threads in a long time, and stuff like Kokopelli, pink bunnies, or pie wars probably wouldn’t mean anything to current readers. But all of us are still friends because at one point we read the same kids’ science magazine.
ok just out of curiosity, how many of you remember the origin of the hot pink bunnies?
I do.
The cat/dog wars, right? I think I missed the war but was there for the aftermath.
Me! I wasn’t subscribed to Muse yet when the cat/dog debate actually happened, but I read all of the Muse back issues that the school library had when I was in elementary school, so I figured it out from there. (Actually the first issue of Muse I ever read, the Rube Goldberg one, had HPBs in it, which confused me a lot at the time.) There was also a brief explanation of the HPBs’ origin in the 10th anniversary issue, and I imagine most MBers subscribed to Muse at that time. (…Okay, that was eight years ago. Wow.)
Me! I believe the cat and dog issues were right before I started subscribing, and my school library had them.
I’m really sad to hear this news. There’s no other magazine out there quite like Muse that can talk as intelligently about guardrails and art history as it can about science and technology.
Me!
I subscribed to the magazine after the cat/dog wars but I loved Mr. Baker’s article chronicling the history!
I do.
So do the editors hate money or something?
I don’t know, Lizzie. Maybe somebody is giving the magazine a lot of money to become a STEM cheerleader.
The entire world is a STEM cheerleader. I liked that Muse had a balance of stuff.
So did I. The magazine also tried to teach (among other things) skepticism, independent thinking, and mistrust of bandwagons. Now the “new” Muse appears with a cover story called “How S.T.E.M.[sic] is Saving the World (One Small Problem at a Time).” I think “classic” Muse would have poked fun at both the acronym and the idea.
Well, this is only one issue. They’re free to tweak it as time goes on and hopefully bring back some of the wackiness and non-science topics.
That’s true. New TV series often take a while to find their feet. That could happen here.
gag
I have complicated feelings about this.
I hate change, I don’t deal with it well, my gut reaction is much the same as what you all seem to be displaying – how dare they, etc. But I want to interrogate that a little more, and see if I can get past my hatred to an actual informed opinion.
When I was six, seven, eight and started reading Muse, I was there for only the science. (OK, at six maybe I was more there for the cartoons. I was a precocious child but not *quite* that precocious.) But, partially because the culture my parents placed me in was one that valued science disproportionately, partially because even then I had a one-track mind and I’d decided that science was going to be the target of my affections, I did not much care for the art and history. There was not, at that time, a science-only magazine for children of my age that I was aware of. I stuck with Muse.
(Generally, that follows a pattern in my life – I’ve been resistant to becoming a well-rounded person because of my fanatical devotion to my current interests. In college, I was very reluctant to take my general education requirements, even though I’ve found that I use and take at least as much joy from knowing about World Music Cultures and Geomorphology than I took from my Software Engineering class, and mind you, I am employed as a software engineer.)
So, this leads me to my complicated feelings. Should there be a scientific magazine for kids? YES. Should it be Muse? MAYBE, NOT SURE. Should it be uncritically accepting of STEM? PROBABLY NOT.
I also have some feelings about the STEM acronym generally. I self-identify as a “maker”; I’ve attended hackerspaces for years, I’m working on starting my own, I’m giving a talk at World Maker Faire in less than a month (!), etc. I have a degree in computer science and mathematics, which is, like, at least half of the acronym. So I feel qualified to have an informed opinion on this.
I believe that technology has incredible, transformative power, and encouraging children to be aware of those opportunities is a good thing. I believe that, right now, a career in STEM, especially my part of it (E for Engineering), is a path to money and a certain degree of freedom with your life choices, which is rare in this economy and also very valuable.
I believe that many people, myself included, value STEM to the exclusion of all else. There’s also the STEAM movement, which adds A for Arts, and I find myself struggling with the concept because I feel that STEM doesn’t need any additional letters to be creative, and also because often the people adding the A don’t really get the S T E or M and just want to jump on the trend of STEM being “cool”. (See also: “maker movement”.) On the other hand, those trend-hopping people often do traditionally feminine-coded arts, and STEM is traditionally masculine-coded, so it’s very possible it’s just my internalized misogyny trying to keep this tiny corner of prestige I’ve scraped out for myself, and how messed up is it that I’m using “prestige” as shorthand for “masculine-coded power,” anyway?
So I have yet to completely work through my thoughts about STEM as a whole. I want to be critical of it. STEM is not a uniformly positive place to be. We *can* save the world, but Uber-for-dogs probably isn’t going to, you know? But I’ve also gained so much from STEM, and I want others to have the benefits I’ve had. I’m also not sure how much of my nuanced thoughts would really translate well to an eight year old’s brain. I don’t want to talk down to anyone, but it’s a genuinely complicated set of feelings, and I don’t want to give the wrong impression. So maybe “saving the world” is, if not the best we can do, the best the Muse editors thought they could do. (I kind of hate to say it, especially in present company, but I do sometimes wonder if the sets of “people who edit children’s magazines” and “people who have first-person experiences with science” are not as overlapping as I would like. You’d know more about that than me, though, I expect.)
I’ve written a lot here, but the thing is, I haven’t really come to any conclusions. I have my own faulty memories of old Muse, I have my own feelings about STEM, but they don’t paint a full picture. I am saddened by anything that reads as simplifying Muse, when I gloried in its complexity – but there are so many moving parts here, and so much obscured to me, that I can’t really say yet whether this is truly a loss.
Huh. I’m not so sure if it matters whether the whole set of “people who edit children’s magazines” and “people who have first-person experiences with science” entirely overlaps. One of the things that I loved about Muse as a kid was that it exposed me to new information that we hadn’t yet learned in school. I loved learning about the science, history, and art. To write an engaging article about science, you have to be an effective science communicator. Some scientists are! Some aren’t. I’m going into museums, in part to highlight the connections between STEM and the rest of the world. I’ve done some science, but not any kind of research on my own. I still want to educate and inform exhibit goers.
I love the STEAM abbreviation. I don’t like the image of science as being alone in a lab somewhere, not interacting with other things. I especially don’t like that image of math, that it is weird and boring and dry and can’t possibly have anything to do with the world. I want to use the “A” in STEAM (and history, and culture) to highlight how math has been used over the years. One of the reasons that I loved Muse is that it really showed me the whole universe and the connections throughout.
I think what’s really going on with Muse is that the publisher is aggressively trying to sell subscriptions to schools. Schools are attractive to publishers of kids’ magazines because, unlike individual readers, they don’t outgrow the magazines and thus don’t need to be replaced every few years to keep the circulation steady. Unfortunately, schools want mainstream magazines aimed at as many students as possible; on the whole, they’re leery of anything too quirky or creative. As a result, the old “classic” Muse, though very popular with home-schoolers, had trouble penetrating the institutional education market. The old publishers idealistically accepted that limitation as the price they had to pay for putting out an unusual magazine, but the new publishers decided that the quirkiness and creativity had to go.
That’s my first-order guess about what’s behind the makeover. It’s too bad, but it’s the way the world works sometimes.
This whole thing makes me incredibly sad. One of the things that I loved about Muse was the fact that it had articles on a variety of topics, even if it was a themed month (like the LOTR issue, which had an article on Elvish and how it was created, as well as the expected how-the-movie-was-made article) I could always count on learning something new and interesting with every issue. For years, whenever I came out with some random fact at dinner, my parents would ask “Where’d you find that out from–oh wait, let me guess, Muse.”
Now that the subject matter is so restricted, I feel like eight-year-old-me (that’s how old I was when my parents first bought me a subscription) would have gotten bored of this version of Muse very quickly.
I’m not receiving Muse anymore, due to a variety of factors, but I had always hoped that I could get a subscription for my eventual children when they were the right age. Now I’m not sure if I would want to do that anymore. (I certainly intend to share my back issues with them though.)
On a related note, people are allowed to post their own writings/articles on MB, correct? While it won’t be like the old Muse, since most of us don’t have time to write on a regular basis, it could keep that little spark going, right?
Groundhog,
Yes, indeed! MBers are free to post anything they like here, with the standard restrictions. You’re welcome to keep the flame alive here if you like. I can’t think of a better place. And if Oxlin or other MBers ever decide to start a magazine of their own, they’ll have my blessing. I think Elizabeth Preston was only 24 years old when she became Muse‘s editor-in-chief.
Something positive you all could do right away would be to review the revamped Muse on places like Amazon. Please give it a close look first, though, and decide what you really think about it — not just what you’ve heard about it from one or two people here. I do think that potential subscribers deserve to know that any reviews based on issues earlier than September 2015 are out of date and refer to a very different magazine.
I’ve posted a sort-of-review on Amazon noting that earlier reviews are now obsolete. Please find it and vote it “helpful” so others will see it. (It’s at www .amazon. com/gp/customer-reviews/R3G746KH6AEZP6 .)
Thanks!
The magazine cover looks so odd with the title standing there all by its lonesome.
Why is the date on your reply July 4, 2003?
I can’t imagine.
I’ve asked Amazon to correct the date. If I had to be stuck in the past, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t pick July 2003.
I marked your Amazon review helpful, but….it is a bit puzzling/confusing/misleading that the date for some reason came through as being posted in July of 2003
Robert, I can’t find your review – the link you posted doesn’t work.
Cat’s Meow, it should work if you take out the spaces. We “delinkify” links on MB to keep bots, Balrogs, etc., from tracing them back to this site.
I really dislike the school of thought that says that STEM is its own little universe that doesn’t include any of the surrounding disciplines, and that nothing can be gained from interaction outside of that.
So is this Muse and Odyssey merging or just Muse becoming like Odyssey is/was?
I’d guess officially the former, but de facto the latter.
It’s just bizarre. Of the original Greek Muses, only one was the patroness of a science. The other eight were all art (if you consider history an art, I guess). How can Muse be Muse without music and poetry? If this first issue is indicative of the new magazine, I guess I wash my hands of it.
And was the day of my delight
As pure and perfect as I say?
The very source and fount of Day
Is dash’d with wandering isles of night.
If all was good and fair we met,
This earth had been the Paradise
It never look’d to human eyes
Since our first Sun arose and set.
And is it that the haze of grief
Makes former gladness loom so great?
The lowness of the present state,
That sets the past in this relief?
Or that the past will always win
A glory from its being far;
And orb into the perfect star
We saw not, when we moved therein?
I just got my issue today and…. it’s just… not right. I miss Bo’s Page most of all
SFTDP but I would like to clarify that I am aware that there is still something similar to Bo’s Page, but with changes that I don’t like – there’s fewer facts/stories, and the answer is “hidden somewhere in the issue” which is a big NOPE for me since I do not have the patience nor the finding abilities for that.
*sees new Muse issue* 1. oh cool! a new issue! 2. wait a minute… this dosn`t look right 3. cover analysis! STEM is saving the world???? no???? it`s not????? stop????? also where`s koko on the cover! the design is different! WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!?! *looks at back cover* WHAT DO U MEAN THERE`S A NEW COMIC!!!! *looks at inside cover* Why is it so sleek and muse-free??? *flips to page 2* brainstorm a name?? how about “weird comic which has no muses but features a boy with expressionless eyes because somehow that`s better”? *reads muse mail* NOOO THE MUSES ARE GONE NOOOO NOOOOO HALP MEHHHH!!! D`:D`:D`:D`: why ru talking about pies! there wil never again be pies! no more kokopellie to throw pieeessss! i wonder if any of these letter-writers pondered that the beloved muse they once knew might be goonnnneee. how do u stilll have the same address u POSERS! WHO ARE YOU AND WHT HAVE U DONE WITH MUSE D`:D`:D`:D`:D`:D`:D`:D`:
THEY EVEN REMOVED THE SLOGAN
ok so, i hate the muse update, i hate the tumblr update.
i feel so awesome nd like…
i love daniel pinkwater tho! i haven`t read many of his books except for The Neddiad, and it`s sequels. But he said in the back of cat-whiskered girl he would write a sequel (follow-up, contnuation, w/e), but he HASN`T! And it was like at least 3 years ago. i even looked it up to make sure he wasn`t dead or anything! (ok that sounds like a rly horrible thing to say but like … dude…)
i have to keep taking ballet classes this year, which i don`t like anymore but my mom won`t let me quit bc apparently she thinks i`m going to have a career in dance nd im like mum? have u seen me dance? this is the year where if ur not serious u shld get out, nd its time for me to get out.
also i got red eyemakeup
THIS IS THE FIRST STEP TO SUCCESSFULLY SECRETLY BECOMING JOSH DUN MUAHAHAHAHA
ok sorry for the rly long post bye
fajfgjahailghil i thought i was making a general comment, not a reply to robert coontz’s comment!!!! sorry!!
I can move it, with a little effort. Hold on…
How’s that? Better?
Jeez. I wish I could get my hands on a copy and see what it’s like for myself. (I’ll have to check if the local library still has a Muse subscription.) It’s hard to judge without actually reading it, but… well, a lot of the articles I really liked back in the day were about something other than science, like Heinrich Schliemann, or follies, or priest holes. (Any article that Paul wrote was fabulous, actually, not just the priest hole one.) I think the variety of topics really set Muse apart from other children’s magazines.
And Muse without Muses sounds like elementary-school-me’s worst nightmare. I’m glad no drastic changes happened to the magazine while I still subscribed and saw it as a big part of my life. (I probably would have written the editors a long and overdramatic letter about it and then never sent it.)
Does anyone else remember in, oh, probably like 2010 when Muse was going through another (less dramatic) shift? I think the text got smaller and the audience got younger, maybe? There was a lot of very intense and very dramatic discussion on several different threads.
Oh wow no it was October 2008, my first full month on the blog. And Elizabeth Preston kept popping in to discuss it with us, as did one of the other editors. I definitely didn’t realize how remarkable that was at the time.
It’s pretty cool to see how unified and serious we were about the magazine and our love for it and our desire to see it continue in a direction we felt was most true to its mission. We were drafting a lengthy letter and everything. It was definitely a little over the top, but it also looks like we then felt that even though we didn’t end up sending the letter our opinions were taken into account? This is interesting to look back on.
Also, there’s a bit where we’re all signing it with our names and ages, and… Luna was the oldest of the signees at 18. I’m now 21. Time is weird, y’all.
I’m really curious what kind of reaction Muse will get from its current readers about this update. What the contents of their Fan Mail Pit will be for the next few months, for example. Just like our comments shaped the magazine at that previous junction in its history, I bet theirs will do the same for this next iteration.
The magazine’s dimensions got smaller and they did away with third-party ads at one point, I think.
It’s weird to think now that MuseBlog really was a place for Muse fans back in the day… I’m glad we all stuck around.
Hey everyone, I’m posting from my college dorm room. I am a College Student. It’s terrifying and I’m gonna crash and burn in about three seconds, but hey! I’m here! I made it this far!
Rest and learn to find your way around tomorrow. But that’s tomorrow. For now, rest and take deep breaths.
Well, I mean if by ‘rest’ you mean ‘throw myself frantically into every orientation thing all day’, I sort of followed your advice. I’m resting now, anyway.
Anyway, it all went great. Making friends and everything. Love it here.
That’s good to hear.
Yay colleging! It will probably be overwhelming initially but I promise it’s worthwhile.
Story update: I’m now at 10,012 words and have started writing about the first dungeon. This is chapter six. At the rate my story is going at, I may need over 40,000, but that’s okay as long as I manage to write it all in time. I found a person to read my story and they describe it as “Intense” and has them “at the edge of my seat”
Sounds like I’m doing well I guess.
Hi. I’m YinYangSpirit12. I’ve been a lurker for a while now, but have FINALLY gotten the courage to say something. Yay me! I hope I can be accepted into the MB community
Anyways, I’ve been a muser for awhile now, but have read issues as far back as 2000. I started to notice changes when Odyssey’s editor came over to muse. The articles were more science-y compared to old muse. It felt weird. That was April. Then in May she got rid of “muserology”. After that the magazine played Hot Poatato with the science nerdy ball and the lighthearted fun ball. Then, came the September issue. I think they’re trying to keep the Odyssey readers who were transferred to muse’s subscription. Ignoring the current musers.
Anyways, First comment I’ve made, and I hope to become part of MB.
-YinYangSpirit12
Welcome, YYS!
Thx!! :)! I like being in a blog community!
Hi YYS! Welcome to the blog!
Thanks for the warm welcome!
Hello, welcome! I’m Luna. I use to post a ton while I was in college, but between real life and currently living with my parents, I’m just not on much currently, but have been intermittently lurking.
It’s good to know that I wasn’t the only lurker!
Welcome, it’s good to hear from you!
Thanks for the pies!
Welcome, welcome, welcome!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Welcome to the blog!!! Glad you decided to post! Can I ask you what grade you’re in? What’s your favorite color? Any hobbies you particularly enjoy??
*carefully hands over one pie; excitedly throws another one into your face, the traditional museblog welcome*
OK. Here goes.
1. I don’t feel comfortable saying my age or grade, BUT I can tell you that I know how to drive, but I don’t have a license.
2. My favorite color is Aqua, because once I was on a llama trek in Pisga national forest (that’s another story) and we were hiking up this mountain, and when we got to the top, the sky was really really REALLY blue, and I just felt awesome!
3. My favorite hobby is either drawing comics or playing volleyball.
Man, this question answering makes me feel like a celebrity! Got any more?
More questions, you say? Alrighty then! What music do you like? Do you have any pets? Are you cool with being called YYS or do you prefer something else?
I’m not a pop music person. I like alternative. My favorite singer is Feist. I have 2 pets. A tortoise shell cat named Arlene Mimi Urania… Let’s just say her middle name is all of the muses names. I also have a dog named Reba. I ordered a Venus Fly Trap. I’m naming it Planty. I’m very creative when it comes to naming things. Just kidding.
I’m fine with YYS. Any other questions?
Ha, I love that name for your cat.
Greetings YYS! We hope you’ll enjoy posting here
I already do!
Welcome!
I hope you stick around, we’re always excited to welcome someone new to the MB family.
I’ll stick around more than pie sticks to face!
Hi, YingYangSpirit12! Welcome to MuseBlog!
Thanks!
“I’ve been a lurker for a while now, but have FINALLY gotten the courage to say something.”
Surely the best choice that you’ve made in your life.
I can’t wait to hear more from you!! Welcome!
Thanks! I’m really happy with my choice!
Welcome to MuseBlog!!
Thanks you! Feel free to ask me anything about myself!
Wow! That was fun! Thanks for the warm welcome!
My only concern is that I’m in a different time zone then everyone else. Will that be a problem, GAPA?
MBers live all over the world.
Good to know!
We’ve got people in most (maybe even all) US time zones. Although I don’t know that we gave anyone in Hawaii. So just most. I’m in Alaska, so three hours behind blog time. We have GAPAs on the west coast, east coast, and one all the way in England. And MBers in Europe, Asia, Austsalia, and New Zealand. The worst thing that happens being in a different time zone is just sometimes the busy posting times are when you’re asleep or not home, or when you’re posting others are asleep. But since its not a live chat room it really doesn’t make too much difference.
Stuck around, feel free to ask us questions. What are your interests? Do you know what you want to do when you “grow up”? What kind of books/movies do you enjoy? Favorite TV shows?
Interests: Mythology of ANY kind. I’m also into graphic novels. I also draw comics. A lot.
When I “Grow up” I want to be a cartoonist, or a regular novelist.
I’m a hard core Percy Jackson fan. I’m not sure what my favorite movie is. Basically anything that isn’t predicable and is well done I’ll watch.
I don’t have cable. Sorry.
Have you read Larry Gonick’s non-Muse works? His Cartoon History of the Universe books are phenomenal.
I also don’t have cable, but have you looked into Netflix? It’s ruined my social life. I love it.
I haven’t. Yet. I read a lot of stuff through the library (my mom’s the library director of our local system) and they don’t have any copy’s of Larry Gonicks OTHER muse works, but I will look in to it!
(They do have a copy of attack the smart pies. But it’s only been checked out once. By me)
We have a Netflix trial for 30 days. What would you recommend?
I would recommend not watching Netflix, if you enjoy doing other things with your time >_>
(she said, going back to her leverage / america’s next top model / buffy / adventure time / planet earth binges)
I mean unrelated muse works.
Oh man! I recommend Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The IT Crowd, Top Gear, Arrested Development, Archer, Futurama… but of course it all varies based on your taste. The IT Crowd and Top Gear are both British, so they have that British dry wit and lack of political correctness. Archer is also very, very politically incorrect (but hilarious). Mad Men and Breaking Bad are works of art and I can’t extol either one enough — Mad Men in particular is like a novel. Arrested Development and Futurama (and Archer) are all very funny, clever, intelligent shows. And, of course, if you like more run-of-the-mill sitcoms (which I do every so often), there’s the Office, Friends, etc. And of course Doctor Who and Sherlock if you want to dive further down the BBC rabbit hole.
I have watched a lot of Netflix.
Re: cable–we don’t have cable, either, and there are quite a few noncable tv shows I enjoy, although I admit most of my top shows aren’t ones I caught on primetime TV.
Recommendations for TV shows if you want to go down the Netflix rabbit hole, in no particular order:
Firefly (one season, and a movie–science fiction space show crossed w/ Western, but way way way way more amazing and wonderful than that description could ever make you think)
BBC’s Sherlock (modern twist on Sherlock, set in the 21st century–brilliantly amazing, w/ some quirky British humor)
Doctor Who (soft science fiction, people tend to either think it’s absolutely brilliant or they can’t understand why anyone would give it the time of day b/c they think it’s awful. One of my favorites, although it’s been going down hill recently imho. I’d start with the 2005 reboot, first episode is “Rose”.)
Torchwood (a more mature/adult oriented spin off of Doctor Who, only 3 seasons worth mentioning, and a 4th “americanized” season that I try to forget happened)
Star Trek (Orignal Series and Deep Space Nine. Original is great for stand alone episodes, but you’ve got to be OK with cheap 50s special effects, and they can be a bit cheesy but I love them. DS9 is way darker and grittier and super plotty. Gotta watch pretty much every episode from the very beginning. Next Generation and Voyager are OK, haven’t started Enterprise)
BBC’s Merlin (twist on the Merlin folklore, 5 seasons, another of my faves)
BBC’s Jekyll (mini-series, more for a mature/adult audience, so might not be the best choice, but you know your age/maturity/what your parents would be OK with better than I do)
BBC’s Robin Hood (come to think of it I never actually finished this. I think I got impatient, read spoilers, and didn’t like what was going to happen, and kind of got sidetracked from finishing)
Supernatural (essentially about 2 brothers who hunt supernatural monsters like ghosts and vampires and werewolves and other stuff. Good show, cult following)
BBC’s Being Human (also more of an adult/mature oriented show, follows the journey of a vampire, werewolf, and ghost who are trying to keep their identity secret and live out normal human lives. Not to be confused with the American version)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the name pretty much says it all….chronicles her monster slaying adventures as well as that of her friends, as she tries to be a normal highschool–and later college–age kid)
Angel (spin off of Buffy, I never did finish this)
Almost Human (FOX show that just aired 1-2 yrs ago, before being cancelled. Basically set in the future, when human police officers have robot back ups, and follows one police officer w/ a semi-mysterious/traumatic past and his much more human than all the other robo-cops partner, the DRN model robot, Dorian. Really great show, still sad they cancelled it)
Leverage (basically a team of kind hearted crooks sets about doing all sorts of different con jobs, each of which designed to bring justice to the underdog)
House (follows Dr. House and his team of super smart Drs as they solve crazy medical cases no one else can.)
I may think of more. I’m blanking on what other shows I binge watched in college and absolutely love. I’ve got a whole list of other (broadcast) TV shows that I watch/follow routinely when they’re on in the winter.
What are your thoughts on DW season 8? I know you hated the s7 finale.
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I had some pretty mixed feelings with Season 8. I think I like Capaldi as the Doctor, although I’m still warming up to him. I do like that we’re not still on a rapidly de-aging process with the Doctor. Clara…..Well, she developed a bit, not quite so static, especially since she can’t just flirt constantly w/ the Doctor. And I liked Danny a lot…….Which means I hated what they did with the Clara/Danny relationship, not just the ultimate season end (which I am not a fan of for a variety of reasons: what they did with the Master, what they did with Danny), but the way that season seemed to consist of “oh hi Danny I love you but hang on I’m just going to lie to you. Again. And again. Oh, and again. And then I’m going to lie about lying to you. Oh, wait, what, I”m lying? Oh, you are okay if I hang out with the Doctor, as long as I tell you I”m with him? OK, great! Nope, not hanging out with the Doctor right now, haven’t seen him in *ages*, definitely not travelling with him….Oh, you saw me get into his TARDIS, oh no, you must be hallucinating, I would never lie to you…..” Still don’t get the point of that, to be honest. I was hoping for a nice happy little ending for the two of them (preferably w/ Clara leaving the show, but the two of them together and travelling w/ the Doctor would have been somewhat palatable, too, I think).
As a whole, I don’t really have strong positive or negative feelings toward the season. But certain episodes, certain aspects of episodes….yeah.
Oh, and if choosing cremation=really bad b/c then you feel/experience the pain of getting cremated in you “afterlife” in “heaven”, then wouldn’t burial be a pretty poor option, as well, since you then get to experience the joy of your body rotting and being eaten by bugs? Sounds *fantastic*.
But yeah. I def didn’t care for how it ended, partly for the Master thing, partly for the emotional trauma and much tears.
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I agree a lot: I liked Danny and their initial chemistry but he put up with a looot toward the end.
I didn’t like the Eleventh Doctor for reasons I can’t quite quantify. That one moment in “Deep Breath” where Clara gets whapped in the head with a newspaper prompted me to give this season a chance. “Robot of Sherwood” was the stupid, campy, silly episode that I had been missing for a while. “Listen,” “Mummy on the Orient Express,” and “Flatline” are some of my favorite episodes of the new show.
I liked the bleakness of the season 8 finale ending. The finale itself was a bit rocky but the feeling of “that’s it? That’s how it’s finished? Oh no, here come the waterworks…” was amazing. The same thing happened with Legend of Korra; an especially bleak ending to a season made me love the show again after watching it as an obligation for so long.
The Christmas special would actually have been a touching and amazing way for Clara to leave, but nope. Oh well.
I’m cautiously optimistic for season 9. I don’t like Capaldi enough that I’ll endure an entire season of “Kill the Moon” and “In the Forest of the Night,” but every season’s gotta have one or two stinkers. Otherwise it won’t be any fun!
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Also…..If Danny’s gone, how does their future descendent, Orson, come into existence? Are they going to do a lame cop out such as Clara is currently pregnant w/ his unborn child, or “time can be rewritten” and he no longer exists?
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Personally I’ll be disappointed if Clara is pregnant. It’d have to be done really well, especially right on the heels of Amy.
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I thought this season was a noticeable improvement over seasons 6-7, I like Twelve and Clara’s contrasting personalities and how they’re shown as friends without romantic tension. Plus, no Mary Sue River. Thoughts on specific episodes!
Robot of Sherwood – Fun historical episode, really funny, Clara gets to be awesome.
Listen – Built up a really unique and scary potential monster only to end in a huge letdown. Random trip to the future and Clara and Danny’s descendant made everything too complicated.
Time Heist – Good side characters, good twist making use of memory alteration, scary alien turns out to be sympathetic.
Kill The Moon – My mom pointed out that eggs don’t get heavier as the baby inside grows since there’s nowhere for the extra weight to come from, and that bothered me too much to enjoy this episode. To make this episode make more sense I’m going to headcanon that the moon dragon species can control mass and volume the same way Time Lords control time, which would also explain how it could lay an egg the size of the one it just hatched from. Maybe the bigger-on-the-inside TARDIS technology came from Time Lords studying moon dragons and trying to copy their abilities?
Flatline – Creative monster and suspenseful story, even if Twelve’s “man who stops the monsters” speech was super cheesy.
Dark Water/Death In Heaven – Probably my favorite finale yet. The reveals of Missy and the Cybermen had enough hints that they didn’t come out of nowhere, but weren’t super obvious. Also liked Osgood returning, the Moriarty-ish AI in the afterlife, and Twelve encouraging Clara to be rational and not fall for sentimental manipulation, only to suffer that himself when Missy convinces him Gallifrey might be back.
re: New Muse
I feel like not only has the magazine done a huge shift away from the themes of curiosity and skepticism that it used to have, it’s going through another dumbing down phase. I remember last time they tried that and there was huge outcry against it Elizabeth Preston (does she still keep tabs on MB?) actually responded to our concerns and the magazine improved for a bit, which I thought was really great. About the shift away from including the arts and history, I’m deeply saddened. I come from a household filled with art, music, history, and plenty of curiosity about science but not always many answers. Because I was homeschooled by my artist mother who was bad at math and science-y things, and because (at least when I was younger) the larger homeschooling community in which I operated was conservative Christians who actively discouraged scientific inquiry, I had (and continue to have) a complicated relationship with it. I had the desire to know, but very few resources to learn, and Muse offered me a safe pace to get into it. It wasn’t JUST for science kids, and it explained things simply and effectively, but at a high enough level that I didn’t feel like an idiot for reading it. I majored in history and music and now I work on boats, so it’s not like Muse changed me forever and turned me into an engineer or anything, but it did change me forever by helping me become far more well-rounded as a person then I otherwise would have been able to do given my resources. It encouraged my interest in how all different disciplines interact and are interdependent, and through MuseBlog it provided me with a place to interact with science kids while feeling like I actually belonged. (Most of you nerds I never would have interacted with otherwise, and now you’re some of my most treasured friends.)
Anyway, this got a lot more ramble-y than I intended it to, but I’m sorry to see that Muse stripping itself of the very elements that made it such an important part of so many childhoods, and fostered such a vibrant community. Especially if they’re trying to appeal to schools, I think that curiosity, skepticism, a sense of humor, and interdisciplinary connections are important to expose kids to. If they’re looking for qualities that won’t get old, I think classic Muse had it down cold.
As someone who plans on entering a STEM field post-college, I really liked that I grew up reading a magazine that covered anything from New Coke to food photography. I always felt like it was inevitable that I would go into science, and it was great learning about so many random things I never would have otherwise. STEM is great and all, but if I wanted to read about STEM I would subscribe to National Geographic Kids (which I did) or read books about science (which I also did).
Also, the acronym STEM is ridiculous.
Addendum: A lot of people in STEM (agh) are pretty narrowly focused. Most of my CS major friends don’t read for pleasure, don’t have hobbies (though most of them play instruments), and definitely don’t have the breadth of random, useless knowledge that I do. Granted, my knowledge base is almost entirely useless, and Muse covered mostly inconsequential topics (and by this I mean nothing you would learn in school or apply in your everyday life, not unimportant), but I loved the exposure to new things. A Halloween issue about the Tower of London? Learning about Damascus swords? An election issue not about politics but about how the voting system works? Yes, please, all of it!
This is what I loved about Muse, and if it becomes entirely STEM-focused I would be really disappointed.
Don’t forget the lost works of literature article! And the future worlds issue! There should be a thread dedicated memories of old muse and Kokopelli and company memories!
As this year is the tenth anniversary of the MB site, I’ve suggested a “MuseBlog’s Greatest Hits” thread for discussing what we think are some of the most memorable moments that have happened here, but a “Muse’s Greatest Hits” would be equally good.
Go ahead and make the thread!
I’ve never been able to log in.
I don’t know about logging in, but I made your thread if you want to get the ball rolling.
Even “NG Kids” does not-strictly-STEM stuff like their Guinness World Records feature and some pieces on travel and holidays. They had more history articles in the past though, and… Everybody on this site has probably heard my “NG Kids was better when it was called ‘World’ and the NGS should make a magazine with the same level of detail as the ‘World’ of the 80s/90s for teens to fill the space between reading ‘NG Kids’ and reading the main ‘Geographic'” rant before so I’ll stop here.
There’s also Science News (I was reading it since I was about 8, and they dumbed it down when I was about 14, so I think it would be appropriate for muse-age kids), and Dig, if that still exists.
Dig was fantastic. Technically my brother was subscribed to it while I got Muse but I kinda stole most of his issues…
Dig was good, although sadly my parents didn’t subscribe until I was old enough that it was below my reading level. I still enjoyed it, but at the same time, I was like “I wish there was more detail than this.”
But you can’t read a NGK article without running into an ad for toothpaste or something like that. Cricket media doesn’t run ads, so maybe there was a lack of funds, and they needed to get rid of “costly” features.
I have not heard that rant, but I suspect that I would agree with most of it.
To me, the qualities of curiosity and skepticism are more important and more science-y and more valuable in creating future scientists than the actual facts or knowing science trivia are. Especially in the era we live in, finding facts and gaining knowledge is relatively easy; it’s the desire to do so that’s important.
It makes me feel so much better about my playing when I listen to recordings of soloists and they have the same problems with the same places that I do. That said, I wish my fingers would work properly; I think I’ve got some overuse-type thing going on and I don’t get my massage until the 15th and it’s worrying me.
Ouch, I’m sorry.
What also bugs me is that most GT programs (Gifted and Talented) are switching over to a stem curriculum. In fact, my whole school district has gone GaGa for STEM. Plus, isn’t reading important? What about social studies? Where’s SSR (Social studies and Reading) magazine?
I think the STEM pendulum has swung about as far as it can go — and in my experience, pendulums have a way of swinging back. A few rumblings, such as John Cassidy’s article in the latest “New Yorker” (www. newyorker. com/magazine/2015/09/07/college-calculus), could indicate that the return trip is about to begin. Who knows? Five years from now, liberal arts and the Renaissance ideal may be back in fashion, and the “new” Muse may be looking decidedly cobwebby.
Something something “two cultures” something something.
Well, there’s always STEAMSS
Yes… yes… the steamses, my precious
I think another part of the STEM Muse factor is that Odysseys old editor (Johanna Arone) is now the muse editor. Also, if you read the editor list thingy, Meg Moss is gone, Elizabeth Preston is gone (I think) and (obviously) Larry Gonick is gone.
The masthead (staff list) lists Meg Moss as a contributing editor (a title that can mean just about anything). Here’s the complete list:
VP of Editorial and Content: Catherine Connors
Director of Editorial: James M. O’Connor
Editor: Johanna Arnone
Contributing Editors: Meg Moss, Kathryn Hulick
Art Director: Nicole Welch
Designer: Jacqui Ronan Whitehouse
Digital Designer: Kevin Cuasay
Rights and Permissions: David Stockdale
Thanks
YYS, could you tell us which of them came from Odyssey? I haven’t been keeping track of Odyssey lately.
I occasionally read Odyssey. I don’t subscribe. BUT as I said before, my moms in library biz. The library in our town only has a cobblestone and cricket subscription, BUT I’m sure I can find out. Maybe in a few weeks
How do you turn MUSE into STEM? Here’s one way:
MUSE
MUSS
MESS
LESS
LEES
SEES
SEEM
STEM
Can anyone find another chain?
MUSE
MUST
DUST
DUET
SUET
STET*
STEM
*iffy
Excellent! I don’t think it’s possible to find a shorter chain than that.
“Stet” is copy-editor talk for “ignore changes marked on this passage and run it as is.” You see it all the time in my line of work.
It’s in my mental category for “words that are more of a thing in crosswords than in real life”
That’s understandable. It’s similar to the reason I don’t play Scrabble with Scrabble fiends: too many Byzantine monetary units and ancient Armenian weights and measures.
Here’s a longer one with some funny words in it:
MUSE
MUSH
PUSH
POSH
POST
PEST
PEAT
SEAT
SEAM
SEEM
STEM
(Doesn’t anybody else enjoy doing these? I can’t stop myself.)
MUSE
MUST
MOST
MOOT
SOOT
SHOT
SHOW
STOW
STEW
STEM
MUSE
RUSE
RUST
RUNT
RUNS
RUES
SUES
SEES
SEEM
STEM
MUSE
MUSK
DUSK
DUST
DUET
DUES
SUES
SUED
SEED
SEEM
STEM
MUSE
MULE
MOLE
IOLE [Princess loved by Heracles in Greek myth]
IDLE
IDÉE [as in “idée fixe”]
IDEM [bibliographic term]
ITEM
STEM
I can’t believe I found a copy of “The Last Place on Earth” (the book, not the miniseries) for a dollar at the Strand.
UPDATE:
According to Wikipedia (of course you can never be sure with Wikipedia) Muse and Odyssey have merged. Also, in the muse slime issue, there was a “This Muse issue has been received by Odyssey readers also” message. Maybe there trying to shift to a Odyssey mood. From what I remember of Odyssey from when a flipped through a issue at Books a Million a few years ago, Stem muse REALLY reminds me of Odyssey.
Maybe we should call it Musedessy?
In 20 years, people could be reading Odymusalliobbleigacesicket (Odyssey, Muse, Calliope, Dig, faces, cricket)
Or Cricket Magazines could collapse its literary magazines into a single one for all ages– Cicrickadybug.
I forgot to include Spider in there– Cicrickadybider.
For some reason, I can’t imagine HPB in cricket.
Well, that’s ano ugh posting for tonight *yawns* Night!
Agreed, Cricket Country is much too Arcadian for such horrible beasts. We must ensure they never intrude upon such peaceful lands. To the Wall! To arms!
Okay, so:
I woke up this morning and found that three garden spiders had built webs and taken up occupancy on the outside of my windows (well, two in the windows, one between the porch ceiling and the tree but it’s like three feet from the window the other spider is in). Better out than in, a little creepy because they’re huge, whatever.
Sometime between twelve and two, all three vanished. They didn’t just move onto the frame or somewhere where I couldn’t see them, I looked from the outside, they were gone. A bit weird that they all went at the same time, but hey.
Between 4 and 4:30, all three came back into their web. I have no idea what’s happening but it’s slightly creepy. Do spiders take afternoon naps or something?
Garden spiders do tend to disappear during the day, I think. All the ones around my house do, anyway. Maybe it helps them avoid being eaten by birds? That would be my guess.
but they were only gone for like two to three hours. I did wonder if some sort of Shelob had threatened briefly, but since they’re back I guess I’m safe.
Maybe they had an ophthalmologist appointment.
Is there a way I can get Siri to recognize “infoscan” as a synonym for “look up” so I can be like an ACME agent from “Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego” and say things like “Siri, infoscan Icelandic flag”?
I SHOOK HANDS WITH BUZZ ALDRIN!
…but I still have to go and do homework now.
It’s now occurring to me that some of our usernames are growing increasingly obsolete… mine, The Man for Aeiou’s… okay maybe that’s it. Unless pigs suddenly become extinct or Robert changes his name, but both events seem unlikely.
Mine has inadvertently become an Avengers reference.
But winged cats don’t exist, either.
Yeah, mine is now a Steven Universe reference? I obviously didn’t intend that in 2008 when I picked it, but now it fits doubly and it’s great.
It’s sort of weird that I chose this name completely for one comment, and now I’m in CS (aka the thing she’s is/was muse of)
The good news: I actually remember enough to play a couple of songs on guitar, which I haven’t picked up in years! The bad news: it hurts to type. So much. I have so many blisters. Help.
:pie: :squid:
I feel you. I’m trying guitar, too. The skin on my fingertips is peeling off.
I’m assuming that you mean acoustic guitars…? I play classical, and it’s MUCH nicer on your fingers. Plus, I think it sounds way better….. but that’s just me.
Actually, my guitar is a classical guitar, I just prefer to play simple chords for pop songs rather than classical songs. I started out learning all classical but I found that I preferred pop/rock. I don’t really have the patience for classical.
I’m playing an electric guitar. Does that make a difference?
Ooh… ouch. I’ve tried plucking out/strumming a few chords on my dad’s old electric guitar, and it’s definitely different from classical. The thing about classical guitars is that the first three (higher-pitched) strings are made of nylon, and the lower pitched three are nylon wrapped in steel. Conversely, acoustic guitars’ strings are just made of plain steel, and I’m pretty sure that electric guitars are, too. I also feel like electric and acoustic guitars are strung tighter than their classical cousins, which I assume has something to do with the makeup of the strings (perhaps the nylon produces the same pitch at a lower tension) but I may be wrong. Of course, acoustic and electric guitars are more likely to be played with a pick rather than bare fingers; in fact, I can’t think of anybody who plays them without a pick, besides just fooling around or playing informally – especially electric. But I can imagine that your fingers would hurt after playing only a little on an electric guitar. I just have one question: is it your right-hand fingers, left-hand, or both that really hurt? I haven’t really played much on steel-stringed guitars and I’m interested to know how much different they feel, pain-wise. I have experience playing my classical guitar for long stretches (hours) at a time, but by the end, it’s mostly just my left-hand fingers that hurt since they’re the ones that are pressing down hard on the strings. But is it much different plucking/strumming with your right hand that you get any different experiences? (This question is for you, too, RoseQuartz)
Anyway, good luck to you with your playing! I like Choklit Orange’s idea of lubricating your fingers somehow. I’ve recently tried a version of it (accidentally, actually) and it really works!
to all of you: if you do the lubricant idea which I just noticed, please please PLEASE wipe down your strings / fingerboard / everything afterward with a nice clean cloth because that will get kind of nasty.
i once caught some kind of fungal infection from cleaning school instruments no joke
At least they’re not woodwinds…
Bluugh! I’ve cleaned out a number of trombones in my day and all sorts of gunk gets washed out. Whenever a brass player friend is sick my advice is always “Clean out your instrument!”
Yyyyup. I forgot how much it HURTS…. and the calluses I used to have are gone, of course, because the last time I played was probably sometime in high school and maybe not even that. I quit back in middle school, I think. But I’m gonna do this! I really want to play some of the songs off Halsey’s Badlands, and the chords are manageable. I can also play like two Fall Out Boy songs and Hurricane by Panic! At The Disco and that’s about it. But hey, at least it’s something.
(You pretty much summed up my current playlist.) I had a similar problem when I started playing the violin again, and I found that rubbing a bit of lip balm on my fingertips helped minimize the blisters. I think it stopped the friction from building up so much on my skin- it took me a while to realize that lip balm is basically an intense moisturizer. It might help!
Ooh, I will try that! I’m actually about to practice so I’ll see if it works. I didn’t play yesterday and the blisters are a lot better, so hopefully they’ll stay that way.
Sighs
Must everything good go?
First muse, and a few minutes ago, I found out that a llama I trekked with passed away after eating a deadly plant (WHY WASN’T HE WEARING HIS MUZZLE???) I feel bad for muse, bad for the llama trek organization, and bad for myself.
It’s going to be a LONG winter.
Sighs again
ugh I feel you. winter is awful. let’s buckle down and hope for spring!
Guess what I saw today? A football that was on the Challenger shuttle on its final mission. Also a moon rock. My school has had many astronaut alumni.
Awesome! We’re these at your school or at a museum?
Okay, MBers, on Monday I’m taking part in a live teleconference with the International Space Station, and I get to ask Scott Kelly two questions. Is there anything you’d like to know?
LUCKY!
Hmmm, let me think… I’ll get back to you on that.
How does space lettuce taste?
Oooo! Exciting. What’s his favorite thing to watch from the space shuttle?!
Like, locations on earth? The moon? Interesting types of weather? etc.
Jadestone: They said they like looking down at Earth. Mark Kelly used to use a camera with an 800-mm telephoto lens to take pictures of the limb (horizon) with stars in the background. When Terry Virts was on the space station, he tried to photograph every major-league baseball stadium in the United States. (He got most of them; the ones on the coasts were a lot easier to find than the ones in the basically featureless middle of the country.) Now Scott Kelly is doing the same with football stadiums.
Watching the video now! (there you are!)
What’s the hardest part of tranisitoning back and forth between living on the ISS and living on Earth? (Gravity, etc etc)
Thanks, all. I’m set for Monday. I’m told that the event will be on C-SPAN.
Ooh, what time?
From 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. Eastern time, I believe.
That was fun! I wound up sitting next to Col. Catherine “Cady” Coleman and had a nice chat with her. Other astronauts there were Mark Kelly, Samantha Cristoforetti, and Terry Virts, and Scott Kelly on downlink from the ISS. KaiYves has probably hugged them all.
At one point during the transmission, Mark Kelly said to his twin brother Scott in space, “Tell them about what happens to your feet.” It turns out that on the space station, astronauts never put pressure on the soles of their feet except when using exercise machines, but they do use their feet as anchors by hooking them under rails on the sides of the modules. So they lose the calluses on the bottoms of their feet but develop calluses on top of their toes.
There’s a video of the event at
https : // www . press . org/news-multimedia/videos/npc-breakfast-nasa-astronauts-mark-kelly-and-terry-virts .
I’m visible twice during the first minute of the video. After that it’s all astronauts (and rightly so).
I spy you taking a photo of the screen of the Space Station! That’d be a cool photo to get.
I wasn’t sure about the etiquette, but Cady Coleman on my right was taking pictures of everything, so I figured it was all right.
Mark Kelly took a picture of his breakfast and texted it to his brother on the space station. (“How do you like THAT, Mr. Instant Coffee and Freeze-Dried Eggs in a Pouch?”)
Actually just Dr. Coleman from that group. I think I’d heard something about the calluses before, but not as clearly articulated as that.
Shiny!
Well, goodbye from me. I’m heading to the seminary in a few minutes here. I hope you’re all still here whenever I have a chance to say hello again. Ta!
Ave atque vale.
Crusto volanti noli obstare.
Pax tecum!
Since Robert has covered the important Latin phrases, I’ll just say fair winds and following seas.
Good bye, Piggy, and good luck!
Fare thee well, good traveler. May luck be with you in your absence.
Be blessed in your endeavors. We’ll see you later!
Hope everything goes well for you!
Hope we can hear from you soon!
Ahaha we’ll probably still be here.
Good luck!
Good luck, Piggy! <3
Best wishes, Piggy!
Safe travels, Piggy. I’ll miss you.
Godspeed to you. We’ll look forward to your return.
Farewell, Piggy! I’m afraid I missed your sendoff, but I’ll be here with a nice mug of tea and a scone to welcome you back.
Writing update: I’m half way to 40,000 words, but only about 1/3 finished with my story.
Also: The empty space at the back of my mouth that has been bothering me for so long now has been filled. My wisdom tooth has finally surfaced, and it will fill in that empty space!
(I’m missing a moller back there which is why I’ve been wanting my wisdom tooth to grow in.)
So, today in band we tried out different instruments. Kokopelli would not have been proud of my flute playing skills.
Ah, but Koko plays a fipple flute, which is much easier to play than a transverse flute. Give yourself more credit
(as a flute player I can verify that no-one can ever play a flute decently on their first try. Or second. Or third. Or… well, my point is that it takes a while to even make a proper sound out of it.)
My friend wanted to quit band in 6th grade because she couldn’t make a sound on her flute. At all.
Now she’s a senior in high school, and flute section leader of the marching band.
I’d never seen the Tribute in Light in person before…
Oh, guys, did I mention I was going to public school, now? Yeah, I am. The thing is, I’m only going half-time. I’m going to a German class, three math classes, and then I go home and do the rest of my classes online.
This happened when my mother started screaming about how I have to go to public school for some reason. All I know is that she got a job there and then she wanted me to go. Despite the fact that I’ve been homeschooled and online schooled all my life. I’m very comfortable with it, and so dad argued that, too. During a meeting with the school, since dad pushed for online school, and mom pushed for public school, I’m going to both. I like my online school better, though. The only real thing I like about public school is my German class, since the teacher is a really nice person and she looks like my favorite celebrity. But I started my online school a bit late since we had some computer problems, and I still finished it early! If I keep this up, I’ll have about four or five days of online school, and be able to take it easy after public school.
I regret to inform you that I am still friendless.
And I’ve forgotten how to open my locker at least 68 times.
Don’t worry about the locker, lockers are hard. My mailbox here is opened like a locker, which I’m sure is going to cause me no end of frustration this summer.
From my experience: twist the the dial all the around counterclockwise a couple times to reset it. Then bring the dial, still counterclockwise to the first number. Twist it around again (this time clockwise) ALL THE WAY past the the zero and to your second number. Finally, go past the zero again (counterclockwise) to the last number. Also, if you have a locker that doesn’t always open on the first try, you can keep jiggling it and it sometimes opens. That’s actually basically the only way I opened my locker for the entire year last year. Of course, if your problem involves something else besides what I just said…. I probably sound pretty stupid. But I hope this helps!
Why, I went to public school for 11 years!
Friends will naturally develop through classes, I find, especially if you take difficult ones. You band together to collaborate. Extracurriculars also usually help with making friends as well — I made all of my best friends from high school through Science Olympiad, and I broadened my social circle further through marching band.
Tip for opening lockers: Don’t worry about the last number. Just keep turning until it opens. Unlike Noah, I think my locker went counterclockwise-clockwise-counterclockwise, but it’s been a couple years so my memory might be failing me. (You can also make friends with the band kids and just stash all your stuff in the band hallway, which I did junior and senior year. Much more convenient.)
SFTDP: Whoops. Flip the counters- and noncounter-clockwises. It’s been kind of a long day.
The school year just started, right? Don’t worry about it too much. It’ll take some time to get used to the new routine, especially since it’s your first time.
All of my best friends in high school were from German class! Being forced to awkwardly talk to one another in a foreign language is a great icebreaker.
My friend does that- she takes around 2 classes a semester at our public high school and then does lots of independent studies online.
Good luck making friends! It might take time- don’t try to force it- just try to be open about talking to people and eventually some connections will stick.
SFTDP: Catwings: Try joining some clubs, if you can. My school’s Writers’ Club, for example, is a great community that has facilitated a lot of friendships and social bonds. If there’s a writing club, a reading club, or any club that seems up your alley (my school even has clubs for video games and anime, all student led), then check out a meeting!
I’m glad you’re super comfortable with it! The last two years of high school I had trouble relating to anyone there, but I did have a good time with my friends throughout most of it. I was inducted as the new kid they invited me to sit with, as were quite a few others before and after, and I was one who stayed. Unfortunately there was no overlap with “people in my year who were on vaguely my academic level and shared classes” and “my actual friends”, while somehow the former group did pretty well at forming friendships among themselves. (Then in my final year, I took a combined class with a group of friends who would have been a great match for me in that regard, and promptly formed an unrequited crush on one of them, because HORMONES. And, of course, the subject of the class was chemistry.
But if no one has made that kind of move, then being open to new people tends to lead to good things.
Hopefully you’re immune to thinking “these people are acting like jerks now, but I still really want to hang out with them, maybe they’ll stop being jerks”, but: they will most likely keep being jerks. The people who aren’t are way better company. (The ones I knew improved with maturity, but on the other hand internet commenters once went to school, too, so…)
“We appear to be in a world of arctic characteristics!”
“He means it’s cold!”
“I’m cold…”
“We’re in the arctic, it can be cold.”
I’ve heard it’s a bit frosty up there.
That’s from the Hark! A Vagrant strip about the Franklin Expedition.
“You still have most of your fingers.”
“I guess…”
“We’re trapped in the ice…”
“ICE OF GLORY!”
Technically it means “near or like bears”, which is probably a reference to Ursa Major but there are also real bears there so I prefer that explanation
Story update: My story isn’t getting anywhere close to being finished… I’ve taken too many breaks. However, the story is getting really good. I just mentioned a certain character again. A very important character. And that brought more emotion into the scene.
Also, for Catwings, how was your birthday? I hope all has been well and I apologize for being so late at asking.
Yo, my birthday was okay. The first thing that happened was that I got sick and then my only friend told me he didn’t want to speak to me anymore. Otherwise fairly normal
Happy belated birthday!
Sorry about your friend….
Anyways, HBday!!!!!!
So I’m guessing everyone here already heard of “The Race for Space” by Public Service Broadcasting, but if you haven’t, it this great alt rock/electronic concept album that remixes space race speeches with music and it’s amazing. Worth checking out.
Oh yes, it’s amazing, I second the notion.
Guys, quick literature question. When talking about things that someone said, how exactly would you write a plural? Like, if someone was repeating something over and over.
Like in this sentence; “All he could make out were whispered ‘thank you’s”
Is that correct at all? Or will that just not work? Should the S be before or after the quotation mark if it can work?
I think having the “s” outside of the quotation mark is correct, but I’m not sure.
My mom read the same sentence, and she said it should go inside the quotations.
I think personally “All he could make out were whispered ‘thank you’s” is clearer than “[…] were whispered ‘thank yous'” since the latter is ambiguous at first glance (did he say “thank you” multiple times or “thank yous” once), but there doesn’t seem to be anything addressing it in either of the style guides I have (MLA 6th edition and strunk and white) so do whatever makes you feel best and probably people will think it’s wrong either way. OR, my personal favorite, reword the sentence to avoid the problem and it will probably come out more natural anyway.
I’m not sure there’s a standard way of pluralizing phrases. The Associate Press style guide says “words [used] as words” are pluralized without apostrophes and cites this example: His speech had too many “ifs,” “ands” and “buts.” But pluralizing a phrase, as Catwings wants to do, feels different from that.
Lizzie’s solution seems sensible, but it might be less distracting to string the words together with hyphens: “All he could make out were whispered thank-yous.”
However you approach it, if you’re writing for a publication that has copy editors, they’ll probably change it anyway, so there’s no point in worrying about it too much.
Anyways, anyone ever had to “cram”?
I’m trying out for Quizbowl. I’m having an official cram session (and channeling my inner Bo)
Anyone ever done Quizbowl? Any advice or stuff I need to know?
I think I did Quizbowl very briefly when I was in middle school but not at a high level. Probably the same things apply as for any trivia competition – work the format to the best of your abilities, know the types of questions / answers so you can spend less time parsing that, know whether it’s better to guess or to skip.
Yes! I love Quizbowl! I’m not sure if I’ve ever done it “officially”, but my team was district champion a couple years ago (and after writing that out, I realize that it really doesn’t sound as amazing as when I’ve always played it out in my head) and I think we may have been able to go on to some higher level thing but we never heard from our officiator, so… I’m thinking it was more like a one-time thing. That might not have even been official. That was also when I was, what, 11 or 12 so… I think you’re way older than me, and if you’re playing at some high level Quizbowl team, what I’m saying must not sound like much at all. However, I’ve found one site, Protobowl, that’s designed specifically for studying for Quizbowl. I would advise that you check it out, and even if it doesn’t help you much, it’s fun and at least makes you FEEL like it’s helping you. It’s even better if you create an entire team account on the site, because then it can get pretty competitive with points and everything. Anyway. You should check it out.
No, this is the first time I’ve had interest. And, one of my teachers organizes QB, so I’ve never really had lots of info.
I did Knowledge Bowl, which I think is similar, and it was lots of fun. A great use for the random knowledge I have scored up in my head (half of it from Muse, of course), in a team context.
Good luck with quiz bowl!
I’m back for tryouts!!! I am going to say I did pretty well, but I’m awful at math, but I knew all the Greek Mythology questions, and the Literature. Results come out tomorrow!
If I ever get a goldfish, I am probably going to name it Gail.
SAME. ♥
I don’t know if I’ll be able to change the decorations in her tank to match whatever is happening that day, but it would still be fun.
So, Murdoch bought national geographic. thoughts?
I was concerned and had a discussion with my historian friend about it– his opinion is that the magazine is so popular with the public that changing it would invite too much shame and ridicule, and that will hopefully keep it as it is. The important thing is that all that was bought was a majority share in the magazine publishing and TV channel (which was already FOX-run… and not as good as it could be), the Society remains independent and may be able to buy those back someday.
I will say though… Disney, for all you love buying my favorite companies, where were you the one time I’d have been happier with it?
My thought is D:
Writing my novel is a lot of fun. It gives me something to look forward to every morning that I wake up. It makes me feel good and it challenges me to think more in detail. I’m really proud of the work I’ve done so far, I think it’s good. I also found I may have a second talent hidden, voice acting!
Maybe one day my voice will be in a show or movie. XD Perhaps that’s shooting a bit too high. For now, I’m just satisfied with writing fantasy stories. I apologize if you’re getting tired of hearing about my work, it’s all I can think about lately. I’m almost at 30,000 words now and 4/9 complete.
I’m not tired of hearing about it! I like hearing about your accomplishments and optimism! It actually makes ME feel better and confident just thinking about it! See? I’m writing with a ton of exclamation points now!
Good job and good luck with your work!
That’s awesome! Aim high!
I’ve always been fascinated with voice acting.
one of my friends did voice acting in high school, mostly for radio commercials – was a good teenage job. worth checking out if you’re into that
So, the results for QuizBowl came out today. My name was the first one on the list! Yay!
The downside is that since my school formed a team so late, our first match is next Monday. Bo, Crank your Intelligent Air terminal up!
I also had to waist valuable time at a pep rally. I do not enjoy pep rallies because: 1) Our school has a bad sound system so when they say “Welcome our cheerleaders!” it sounds like “Zelchom gou Sheerfweaders!” 2) We have a whacked schedule because our day revolved around Pep Rally, so we were given 1 locker break, so I did not have time at the end of the day to unload my bag, so I now have an unzippable bag.
Congrats!
And yeah, pep rallies are pretty useless. Yay homecoming! I’m a senior this year and really wanted to make homecoming court (I got nominated but that was as far as I got), solely so that I wouldn’t have to play “Somewhere Out There” ad nauseum during the homecoming ceremony.
Sometimes if your teachers are cool with it you can skip out. Our pep rally is during fourth period which is always band for me, and the director usually lets us stay behind and polish our instruments.
What instrument do you play? So far during mouth piece testing (we wrap that up today) my best one is clarinet.
I play tenor sax, one of the larger woodwind/reed instruments. But for marching band purposes, I march baritone. Not baritone sax. The brass instrument. If you google “dynasty marching baritone” you’ll see what I mean. It’s very heavy to hold up! It’s also shiny, hence why we polish them. I also play trombone a lot in wind ensemble. The only reason I play baritone is because we don’t march trombones in our marching band.
So basically I play saxophone as my main focus but spend a lot of time doing low brass with my school band. Why? It’s a long and complicated story.
Good luck with your instrument testing! I recommend sax or trombone, personally. And even if you can’t make a good sound initially, that really doesn’t mean much. What means a lot is how much you practice.
Keep us updated on your band adventures! Band is a huge part of my life and I hope it makes a positive impact on yours!
YinYangSpirit12’s Adventures in 5th Period Band: Installment 1:
Why the make us mouthpiece test
Before we got a new band director, they would let kids pick whatever instrument they wanted. So, there could be a bunch of bad sax players, and trombone players with short arms. BAD!!!
So, when we got a new band instructor, he decided that 1) There would be no short arm trombone players 2) we would all test for every instrument
Sounds like a good plan, middle school band is difficult (if you like playing music, keep going! high school band is much better!)
Our band director just let us choose whatever so we had 30 trumpets, 30 clarinets, 4 trombones, 13 saxes, and 15 flutes :,)
Ha! I’m playing in the pep band for our town’s high school football game tonight, and they’re have a hard time getting ANY trumpets! Do you live in a huge city, or does everyone in your school play an instrument, or what?
Well, after sixth grade a lot of people dropped out and the numbers started to even out. Our high school marching band (grades 9-12) has over 20 trumpets. We have 109 members in total.
Not sure why you can’t find trumpets… it’s a pretty popular instrument! Our town isn’t huge- it started off as a small town and then a lot of people moved here and it got developed a lot but it’s a nice place to live. Not everyone at our school plays an instrument, though! Our senior class has 700 people in it :0 it’s a pretty big high school. they just opened up a new one across town to help deal with how many people there are.
We had our homecoming game last night! It was fun, and we beat our rivals.
I go to an average sized school. Not everyone does band. (Strings is one thing a lot of people do instead of band, But I’ve never felt inspired to play the strings) I’d say we have a good sized band.
“1950s cloud Jesus” is probably the strangest thing in my search history… this week.
For me it would have to be Googling the word ‘Krr’ktus-vier’, which is a word I invented for a fictional language that some of my story characters speak. It’s the name of their home, in translation it means Grave Garden. I Googled it to make sure I wasn’t stealing from something or saying something profane in another language.
Hello blog!
Whoa, I meant to post ages ago but time sort of flew…
I’m leaving for Africa in a week from now, so I’m currently trying to engage hyper-adulting mode. I’ve also advanced my get-licenses-for-all-things-that-go project (cars, check, theory part of captain’s license, check) and graduated college. Being “Margaret Lastname BSc” is weird*. I still have no idea what I want to do my master’s in, except that I shall study in France and it shall not be pure Math. Sadly, Blue and I broke up as we won’t be in the same country for the foreseeable future. It sucks. I’m sick of making responsible, logical adult choices.
What else have I been up to? Well, I bought a kindle and a fluffy sweater. That’s pretty much all the important stuff.
((*No, seriously. Austrians have a thing about titles, and since we abolished titles of nobility, we compensate with academic ones. They’re pretty much considered part of your name and entered in your driver’s license, passport and other official paperwork (unless you unwisely opt out). So by graduating college, I also changed my name. It takes getting used to.))
Oh, and welcome YinYangSpirit12!
It’s nice to meet someone new!
Enjoy Africa!
Holding your tooth-brushing water in a mason jar sounds adult and sophisticated until you knock it off the edge of the sink and have to clean glass shards off the floor…
My mom pointed out that I am a member of Pete Seeger’s union, which makes me happy.
*plays banjo and sings* “There once was a union maid, Who ne-ver was afraaaid…”
Arrr, it be Talk Like A Pirate Day, me shipmates! And, alas, I must be spendin’ it locked up not in the brig but in me department’s Osteology lab. Skulls, but no crossbones!
Huzzah, I keelhauled all o’ me sketch requirements! Bring out th’ grog an’ play a hornpipe t’ celebrate!
So at this point, my story is almost done. I’m at 40,000 words. In about 5 more days, the story will be finished and uploaded to Inkitt for the Hidden Gems contest. ^^ I think I forgot to say that that was why I was writing the whole novel in a single month.
And you wrote the whole thing in Pirate, did you?
you should definitely consider doing nanowrimo
XD I pretty much had my very own personal Novel Writing Month. What would that be, PerNoWriMo? XD
Congrats!
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Database errors on Talk Like a Pirate Day sure are something.
Not sure if I’m nervous or excited about Monday’s QB competition. I’d say it’s the “New-Person-Freaking-Out-Because-This-Is-There-First-Competion-And-A-Bunch-Of-People-Will-Be-Watching-And-I-Could-REALLY-Use-Some-Help-Bo!” feeling, with a dash of “Ohh-This-Will-Fun!-And-I-Could-Lead-My-Team-To-Victory-And-Everyone-Will-Love-Me!” Feeling.
Fair winds an’ followin’ seas t’ ye, matey. I’m sure ye’ll do fine.
so I live in America now and I have lots of Conflicting Impressions but the main thing I didn’t have at home is a public library system. Can I say: interlibrary loans are MAGIC. The first time I placed a request for one I nearly cried for happiness on the way home. tbh I get all sappy about the library every time I go there, which is several times a week.
Where is “home” such that there was no public library system?
Well home is a fairly wibbly-wobbly concept but broadly I’m an American citizen born and raised in Haiti! Over the years I’ve spent enough time in the States that I’m not completely overcome with culture shock, but living here is still new and weird to me in a lot of ways.
Oh, wow, that’s really cool. Were you there during the earthquake?
I was, though it’s not something I like to talk about much. (I was twelve, got evacuated to the States with my mother and brother and had to spend the rest of the school year at a new middle school where I don’t think I learned a single name all year. I got off lightly in that I wasn’t injured or trapped, and my family was all safe, and the house where we live wasn’t damaged — but it was still really awful and traumatic.)
Today I went to the Greek Festival at the church on 17th Street, that was fun, the flea market was pretty good and the stuffed tomatoes were great. The parishioners all seemed to be really nice, and I think I’ll try to go to services there next Sunday.
They were also having the Mayor’s animal adoption festival in Union Square, so I went to that afterwards– lots of kittens and puppies to pet, but sadly no fish, and fish are the only pets allowed in my dorm. I think I might like to keep pet fish again (I had a Betta named Aquamarine from when I was ten until I was thirteen), but I don’t know what I’d do with them during the school breaks.
There were some folks from the Department of Emergency Management there, who showed me how to look up what hurricane evacuation zone I live in– fortunately, my dorm’s “in the white” outside of the zones entirely, I guess because it’s far enough inland and uphill. (Does anyone else here live in NYC? If so, you should probably look up your street.)
I still had some daylight left, so I went to see the Flatiron Building, because I always wanted to… It looks, as Jack Finney said, like the prow of a ship sailing down Broadway. The view of the Empire State Bilding from the plaza at its base was also pretty spectacular. And there’s a LEGO Store across the street! So I spent a lot of time in there browsing…
And now I’m home and I’m going to have a snack and go to bed.
There are smart decisions, stupid decisions and then there’s buying the entire GoT series (well, the first five books) on kindle when you’re supposed to be packing.
…I mean, it’s not like I have to fold my clothes anyway, right? I can probably fit everything I’ve washed so far into my duffle if I crumple it. Besides, packing everything in the vicinity of the bag will add a zesty spontaneity to my dress sense. I’ll be like Miss Frizzle, only with climate-inappropriate attire! Not to mention a complete lack of hygiene products…
…On second thought, I’ll start folding. Once I actually find the duffle under all the clothes and my desk under all the cables, I might be organized enough to call it quits for the day.
You don’t have room to pack as many pies as I’d like to give you right now.
I feel this on such a fundamental level, but you’re such an impressive, planning adult! I knew I was moving for months and I basically started packing in earnest the night before my flight. Now I am in Michigan without my phone charger, the key to my bike lock, or my favorite sweatshirt (it’s fluffy) and having Regrets. So at least you’re above that!
I hope that I’m a somewhat competent adult. Time will tell if I’m forgetting anything important. Sometimes, I feel like most of my “adulting skills” boil down to pulling a Bavarian fire drill on my own life.
Is squealing and burying your face in random soft things (pillows, blankets, the cat, etc.) a normal side-effect of reading adorable slashfic late at night or am I just weird?
If you’re weird, I’m weird
(which reminds me, I haven’t read much fanfic lately. This situation must be remedied.)
I do that all the time
2 big updates:
1. So, I got selected for clarinet in band. Yay me!
2. Today was my first QB match. The first round we lost (I answered 5 questions) The second round we DOMINATED!!!!! I answered a few more then 5. Yay!!!
Congratulations! And good luck with clarinet!
Thanks. The music company has a shortage of clarinets, so I haven’t “met” my clarinet yet. I’m thinking about naming it after a muse.
Please go listen to Hamilton it is streaming on NPR and it is so, so, so incredible
♥ THE TEN-DOLLAR FOUNDING FATHER WITHOUT A FATHER ♥
I love this entire thing way more than is reasonable. Definitely go listen if you haven’t!
confirming my long-held conviction that Hamilton was the BEST founding father (the reason I started to love him was pure bitterness at my Jefferson-apologist high school history teacher but I soon realized that he and I were meant to be, caribbean immigrant abolitionist federalist intellectual romantic of my HEART)
He was always my favorite for being New York’s signer of the Constitution.
Man, why are we taking such an awesome guy off the ten dollar bill but leaving Jackson on the 20?
I think it’s just out of spite.
Jackson didn’t think the US government should print paper money, so I don’t see why his face should be on some.
I think the idea is to dishonor the memory of President You-Move-Your-Feet-You-Lose-Your-Land by putting his face on one of his least favorite things.
I guess it was the Treasury department’s way of saying “neener neener, you messed with us so much but you couldn’t shut us down”.
I prefer Washington myself. He was twelve stories high and made of radiation.
fair enough but Hamilton was made of PURE PHLOGISTON
I’ve been playing “Yorktown” on repeat for the past two hours.
I almost feel sorry for anyone else who was up for a Tony Award this year. Miranda’s gonna clean up.
I was worried a whole musical of mostly rapping would get boring and all the songs would sound the same, but Lin is really good at different rhythms, rhyme schemes, and wordplay.
Usually when I listen to a musical soundtrack I read along with the WIkipedia summary, but no one’s written one yet for Hamilton so I’m just reading the article on Hamilton’s actual life and trying to match them up.
I put together most of my emergency kit today, following the directions in the brochure that the people at the fair were handing out yesterday. I still need to add a toothbrush, a water bottles, and copies of my IDs. (I have the toothbrush I normally use and the water bottle I carry in my backpack, but your “go bag” is supposed to be as ready as you can make it to grab and go if you suddenly hear you have to evacuate. (The one thing I would stop and stuff in, though, would be my weather radio, just because I keep it on the windowsill since it’s solar-powered.)
I hope it’s a long time before a hurricane on the scale of Irene or Sandy hits New York, but I want to be prepared if it isn’t.
Skeletal anatomy is so caking hard, I’m glad I didn’t go to med school.
Oooh, I took a human skeletal anatomy class freshman year and it was tons of fun! The bones made a cool rattling sound. (I’ve found that I’m very good at memorizing things when I care, like fossil identification or human anatomy. It makes cell biology exceedingly difficult because I don’t find the Krebs cycle, etc. very interesting — and that’s why I’m not going to med school.)
So, since the new Muse kinda sent some of us into a bit of nostalgia, I have to ask: Did anyone else here play the ClueFinders software when they were kids?
Yes! Looking at the boxes I definitely played 5th grade and maybe 6th grade. My mom checked them out of the library for me.
Yes, oh yes. I played the first two games the summer before third grade, but 5th Grade Adventures was too hard for me and I never finished it.
When I first got 3rd Grade Adventures, I was really into it– I started playing the game as soon as my dad installed it (sometime in the afternoon) and played straight through until I ran into a puzzle I couldn’t beat sometime that night. My parents yelled for me to come down for dinner (at this time, our computer was in my dad’s office room upstairs, which later became our guest room and then my brothers’ bedroom), but I was too caught up in the game to stop. I ended up being two hours late for dinner, which had gotten cold, but I didn’t care– I’d made it to the final area of the game.
If you remember 3rd Grade Adventures, it was the game with the lost jungle city and the flying monster where you had to find two keys to enter the city– I managed to get both keys and get into the city, and was struggling with one of the first puzzles within it when I stopped.
I went to bed and dreamed about the game and then finished the next day. And then I started bugging mom and dad to buy 4th Grade Adventures…
…I probably was a little *too* much into ClueFinders as a ten-year-old.
The faces puzzle in fifth grade adventures was super hard. It took me AGES to get past it.
Sixth grade was fun though. And the Math stand alone game.
Wait no I redact my previous EVERY SINGLE ONE statement – I have no memory of ever playing a Math one.
I played EVERY SINGLE ONE – multiple times. This includes the special ones- Search & Solve Adventures (which creeped me out so much as a kid. I mean, HAUNTED AMUSEMENT PARK.), Mystery Of The Missing Amulet (AKA Reading Adventures), and Toy Store Adventure (which is much, much more recent than the others and was purchased for me by my mom about a year ago for nostalgia’s sake. It barely has any of the educational component :/ )
SFTDP but I have now realized that I have LIED and SLANDERED – Toy Store Adventure is educational and good and has done no wrong. Mystery Mansion Arcade was the one I was thinking of!
I had the 3rd and 4th grade ones. Remember how the bad guy gets sucked into the mummy’s skull? I used to think that was horrifying.
Same, I thought Dr. Loveless was creepy in general, but seeing his fate was extra-freaky. (Not that he didn’t deserve it…)
Yes! I played 3rd through 5th grade and Mystery of the Missing Amulet. Very fun, although my memories are foggy.
I finished writing my novel today, now I am finishing off a fanfiction novel that I have been working on since around Thanksgiving of last year but wasn’t doing any actual writing during most of that time.
Wow, you’re an inspiration to us all.
I’m not sure if this is allowed, but here we go,
[You’re not banned, but linking to other-nets where people could find you is discouraged. Try posting it in a writing thread here instead! -Admin.]
I think this will lead to the novel. If this isn’t allowed, I guess you can ban me.
Just looked at Musery loves company. Wow. That’s all I can say. Wow. You guys should release “Musery: The next generation!” Or some like that.
As in, “New Products”
Anything in particular?
I have a lot of ideas. (Making Cafe Press products costs money right?) That shall all be revealed tomorrow after I get my recommended 9 hours of sleep.
Ok I got my 9 hours!
Idea 1: This one might not be do-able with CP, but here goes: So, it would have all scenes from Koko&Co blurred together (Some iconic. Some not. These would take up the whole shirt) and then in hand written looking words it would say at the top “You had to experience it to understand it” and then it would just be the blurred images, but at the bottom of the shirt it would say “Well? What are you waiting for? Go experience it!”
Not ALL but a few scenes.
Kokopelli 2016 shirts, and maybe some that make a pun on “aMUSEment”/”aMUSEd”.
Ooh, wait, like I commented ages ago, how about a “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For Kokopelli” bumper sticker like the “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Bartlet” ones some West Wing fans have?
There’s a wonderful bookstore right across from where I live. It’s got a fantastic selection of books on all the things I’m interested in and squashy chairs and a deliciously musty smell and lots of alcoves to hide in and quirky cards and funny books by local authors. I completely lost track of time in there today and startled the owner by still being in the back room when he started turning off the lights. But he was a good sport about it.
Some of the books there made me think again how much I wish I could make weird artsy things, but then I also thought that I shouldn’t use my constant moving as an excuse to not create things, I should see what I can do wherever I happen to be. So hopefully I’ll start doing interesting stuff. I could use a project like that, I feel like my defaulting to netflix forever isn’t particularly healthy.
Recycling crafts using objects you happen to have on hand are always good quick projects.
I (not entirely on a whim) bought a banjo ukulele today! Now I just need to learn how to play it. Books and instruments will be my downfall.
I love ukuleles!
Oooh, a banjolele? My friend has one of those! Please do keep us updated- I’m a very casual ukulele-ist and enjoy the instrument.
I used to know how to play a few Uke chords (I could play some pop song) I’ve forgotten over time. A new Ukulele is definitely on my…. Hm… What list should I put this on anyways?
Update: I can very poorly muddle my way through a couple songs. I’ve looked up chords for a few others I want to learn and am pleasantly surprised to find that they use mainly the same ones I learned for the songs I already learned. Switching between chords is still quite challenging still, but fortunately I am a Professional and I can insert witty comments about the song while struggling to re-seat my fingers on the proper chord. It’s all about showmanship anyway, not musical ability, right?! I spent several hours yesterday while my shipmates were out of the apartment to play it, because trying to learn a new instrument while living in close quarters with people is pretty much the worst thing you can do, for everyone involved.
Sometimes I mentally refer to Stephen Jay Gould as “Dinosagan”.
“…Stop thinking with your glands!”
…0_o
Friday was weird. Friday was different. Friday was unlike any other day this school year.
1. The power unexpectedly went out in band. Everyone’s reason “IT”S THE GHOST OF MARTHA__________” That’s who founded the school.
2. We watched one of my teacher chase their fellow teacher with a dead cockroach. Full story on that:
So, we’re sitting in math, and our teacher is MIA (as in missing in action) One of my teachers comes in and tells us to “invent a new type of math” (usually when people go MIA, they don’t leave lesson plans) While we try to invent a new type of math, an office assistant comes in who will apparently be our substitute, and starts giving a lecture on write ups. As the other teacher leaves, someone yells out “LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT COCKROACH!” This makes the (male) office assistant start screaming. The OTHER teacher hits it with a math workbook and (he must’ve gotten a kick out of the screaming office assistant) dangles the remains of the roach in front of his head. That sends him running and screaming across the room.
After that, he (Office assistant) wrote a report for Ms________ . He wrote down “I killed the cockroach like a man while Mr_________ was shock still”
3. I found my missing pencil. Spooky.
– YinYangSpirit12
Watching the lunar eclipse from the High Line! Who else on the nightside is looking up?
It’s too cloudy here, alas.
It’s so preetttyyyy
I watched it with some of my shipmates, sitting on the sidewalk on the corner of our street because we were too lazy to walk all the way down to the docks. But it was so pretty!
It got to fully eclipsed and red before the clouds came in. Then we lost it.
Walked out of rehearsal and saw the peak – it was really cool looking.
Here where I am, there aren’t any clouds for miles around. We got to our vantage point around the peak of the full eclipse and then left as the moon “waxed” again. We also brought a pair of binoculars and a little telescope, so I could see it happen up close! I can still see it a little bit between the trees at my house…
It was too cloudy last night…
I would have loved to see it…
Same here :/ I have some friends who are professional photographers though and they got great photos from where they were!
I was! …at a lovely view of clouds
Attention, all! October is imminent, and with it the October random thread. Suggestions for celebration-worthy stories or storytellers or (better still) offers to create the thread will be most welcome.
There is water on Mars! I repeat, there is water on Mars!
http : // www . nasa . gov / press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars
Woo! This is a very good example of how every scientific discovery builds on prior evidence that has been gathered– the case for these streaks as the result of liquid water has been built up over the past decade with data from all of the spacecraft we have sent to Mars in that time. I can remember reading an article on the National Geographic News site (back when it had its old design) in 2006-ish proposing this hypothesis, but with much less certainty.
Google changed their logo to a cartoon Mars drinking a glass of water.
And I cackled like a hyena when I saw it after four hours of looking at bones.
And where there is water, there can be pubs!
Hi everyone!!!! I still exist!!
It’s so good/unexpected to see some familiar faces still around!! And I miss the good old blog. So here I am. I may or may not be around a lot, we will see. I feel like an old person now, though. And like, behind the times. I haven’t checked the blog for years.
Some “me” updates:
I’m in my third year of college now (I am…… ..adult……………) and somehow?? I ended up in Iceland this semester, which is pretty gosh darn amazing. And I’m studying environmental science and soil science and focusing in sustainable agriculture.
Anyway, I feel really emotional and old now. Did I mention that I feel old. I feel old. I’m going to go look around on some threads and see what’s going on in MB land.
Hello there, Beedle! Good to see you back on the blog! What’s the news from Iceland?
BEEDLE, HELLO HI I MISS YOU
I discovered the ideal fall FroYo combination last night: Pumpkin Pie + Vanilla Bean + Graham Cracker.
Amazing: filling and crust, all in one. On a cone, it would be like a pumpkin pie missile!
Hmm, have we done any research into frozen treat munitions? In many cases, they can be stored in smaller spaces than pies, never mind their proven effectiveness *alongside* pie… This could be a whole new untapped field…
*scribbles furiously in notepad*
*tears off sheets and stuffs in pneumatic capsule*
*places capsule into tube connecting to main ALLSTAR** facility*
**Anti-Lagomorphic Logistics, Science, and Technology Applied Research, for new MBers. Always recruiting!
Another random grammar question from me. Do you capitalize words after quotations? I’ve seen some people do it, others not. Like, would it be “‘When?’ He asked,’ or “‘When?’ he asked.”? Or would it be something like, if the quotation ended in a comma you wouldn’t capitalize the next word, (ex: “‘I see,’ she said.”) and then if the quote ended in a period, question mark, or exclamation mark, it would be capitalized. (ex: ‘Who was it?’ She asked.”)
I tend to lowercase it unless it is a name because Word will get upset and put a red line under it. So you probably should go with a lower case.
Ex. 1 “Yes, I finally got another treasure chest!” said PineCone.
Or
Ex. 2 “Yes, I finally got another treasure chest!” he said.
Also note that putting too much information connected to the outside of the quote may cause problems and should probably be made into a separate sentence.
This would be an example of a wrong way to do it
Ex. 3 “I am so happy now!” he said, he jumped and ran and twirled about, almost knocking over his friend who wasn’t quite as excited about it.
Periods turn into commas when you have that syntax. (“My notebook is brown,” she said.) I think that’s enough to say that yes, the rest isn’t capitalized regardless of the punctuation mark. It kind of looks weird capitalized because the “she said” part depends on the actual quotation.
Discovered the “hole” on my right ear that some nurse had lead me to believe was in my INNER ear. While I was brushing my hair this morning, I found this weird piercing looking thing on the side of my ear. After a quick google, discovered THAT was the hole.
Dude i have either the same thing or something really similar – it’s right where the front of my ear joins my skull about even with or a little above the tragus. I’d be interested in learning more about it – my mom says it’s a birthmark but it can exude liquid when rubbed sometimes.
I have a picture if anyone’s interested / not sufficiently grossed out.
Okay I googled “hole on ear” and I guess that was the magical combination of words because apparently what I have is called a “preauricular sinus”. SO that’s good to know what it actually is.
I bought a lavender bag at the Farmer’s Market and slept with it on my pillow last night. Very sound sleep.