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One of the funny things about the SCA is that you can know someone for years, spend time with them, even engage in ugly-bumping activities in select instances, and still not know what it is they do for a crust. Friends show up to baronial meetings in business suits and you suddenly realise that Master So-and-So is AKA Mister Such-and-Such the executive/CEO/doctor/lawyer/hamster impersonator/hobo, and you had no idea.

This seems to apply to the intertubes too. I know a bunch of you and have no idea what you do for work. Fancy satisfying my curiosity? Here, I'll put up a poll!

Poll #1196672 Interactive Non-Fiction: What Do You Do?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 30

What do you do? What is your job, your employment, your career? What do you do for a crust? How do you pay the bills? What are ya???

Taking the advice of wiser minds, I shall use L^AT_EX for my project. It should involve less rewriting of existing code, and a much lower server load. It's a shame, though; that Python library looked interesting.

It's interesting to google for "latex", by the way. The top links all refer to the typesetting system, and the Google ads all mention hot fetish sex and rubber. Innnnteresting...


In other news, I was most pleased to discover that syridian has moved to Canberra. Woot! He's here for work, and also 'cause he needed a break from the Big Syd. Having lived there for three thousand years in the early part of this century, I can sympathise. The Sydney people -- the ones I know, at least -- are always lovely, but Sydney itself was only liveable for two weeks in the whole time I was there: the two weeks of the Sydney 2000 Olympics, when a third of the population moved away and left the rest of us some unaccustomed breathing room. I hear that the public transport system, which was quite adequate while I was there, has fallen prey to the Sydney MobNSW government's corruption, and is now useless. That means the only good things about the place are the people and the food, and most of the former and some of the latter are now available here, so why bother?

fire_babe is a firefighter (in the CFA, I think), which is pretty cool.  Firefighters are pretty much the ultimate superheroes.  They're like the ethical opposite of real estate agents.  But that's not the coolest job.

One of kirmish  (the -mish rather than the kir-) used to be an ambulance driver.  That's the other kind of ultimate superhero.  They maybe risk their lives a little less than firefighters, but they have to pull more tricks out of their hats (delivering a baby today, reviving a drowning man yesterday, extracting the driver from a totalled car tomorrow) and they always have disgusting work stories to tell.  And besides: Spider & Rose was a much better movie than Backdraft.  But that's not the coolest job either.

damned_colonial is a Perl geek, one of the ones you recognise the name of, just because you can't miss it.  OK, she's not Audrey or chromatic or Damian, but she's done a huge amount for the language, that's pretty cool.  She doesn't risk her life in the process, except when she gets too near a bunch of rabid Pythonistas, but she hardly ever does so that's OK.  But that's not the coolest job.

I'm not entirely sure what alpha_angel's job is, other than that it involves setting up emergency centres and testing out all sorts of equipment for just-in-case scenarios possibly involving insane seismic events, but it sounds cool.  Not the coolest though.

Getting away from my f-list, I used to know a guy named Chris, who is now a fairly frequent talking head on the ABC, rolled out whenever they need the voice of reason to talk about economics.  Kind of like erudito, only with fewer cross references.  I remember him when he used to be a good Catholic boy; now he's an economist.  Like finding out that the nun who took you for sacramental studies is now on the cover of Hustler.  Still not quite the coolest though.

The coolest job of all belongs to a guy I went to school with, one Peter J Casey.  I ran into him a while back and told him his job was the coolest job of all, and he agreed.  Today, I saw his name on some credits and was reminded of it, which is why I bring it up.  And what (you ask with bated breath) is this job, that's cooler than "superhero" and "pundit" combined?  Peter is an accompanist on Play School.  Inventive, musical, quick-thinking and completely out of the limelight (there's another accompanist who they show occasionally, but Peter has never appeared, as far as I recall).  That's just plain cool. 

An old friend is back on LJ: bar_barra. You'll know him/her/it/them if you read the blurb on his/her/its/their profile page, and then -- like me -- you'll want to click the friendy-friendy buttons as swiftly as possible.

Yay!

I have to unscreen anonymous comments, because I get sick of spam. (Oddly, for a while there I was only getting comment spam on one entry, the filk of Chris de Burgh's Don't Pay The Ferryman. Why? Buggered if I know. Spammers are retarded.) So when someone I like posts a comment on my LJ, nobody gets to see it until I unscreen it. This is, of course, suboptimal for all concerned. The solution is to get your own LJ -- a free one will do -- and let me know so I can friend you. Then you can comment without pain.

I'm pleased that a certain Bilby is now LJ-enabled, as infoaddict. She took a lot of convincing! She needs to do one post, though, possibly with links to her "real" blogs, so that people can contact her by commenting on it.

So now it's Kilian's turn. Considering the extra hassle of unscreening and CAPTCHAs, it makes sense for anyone who comments on LJ regularly to get themselves an account. You don't have to start blogging! Honest! Granted only two people on my friends list have exclusively posting-free LJs (auntyyolly being the other) but the theory is sound!

So, Kilian: hows about you get online at last? The name kilian is taken already, but I'm sure you could try lady_kilian (if you're not planning to ever get a peerage), the_amazing_kilian (if modesty is not one of your vices) or even amazingly_cute_redhead_chickybabe_kilian (because - come on, it's true!).

ETA: Mission accomplished! Say hello to ms_kilian! Long may she comment!

I now have five landed barons or baronesses on my friends list: anthraxia and evildrakey, dormant_dragon, mr_bassman and now sleepy_ermine. Oh, and one ex-landed Baroness: mmy_me. Prompted by a post from one of these, I find myself wondering: what do you do to differentiate between "Me On LJ" and "Me In A Pointy Hat"? I know some of these simply never post about anything related to baronial life, and others do but keep it intentionally vague. Friend-locking is also a useful trick.

My thoughts are that the only hard and fast rule would have to be: never speak as either leader or representative of the barony on your LJ. If you think the King Is A Fink, say so as Fred Nurk, not as Baron Froderick von Flintschtone OP. Never say "my barony thinks the King Is A Fink"; never ever say "my barony ought to think the King Is A Fink". That way lies madness and hate mail.

But what happens when you do post stuff, proceeding carefully and obeying all street signs, and someone takes your personal opinion as official edict (or worse, baronial policy)? Does it make you want to delete your posts and hide in a hole? Or is it just another opportunity to break out the Clue Bat (no relation) and give someone a new perspective, kinetic-energy style?

I ask out of pure curiosity, by the way. I'm not planning on staging a coup and overthrowing the barony. No, not at all. Stop building those fortifications, sleepy_ermine, you're perfectly safe in your tiring, frequently thankless, very well executed job, I assure you...

ETA: And what about ex-royalty (eh, auntyyolly and mr_cvb)? Do they have the same trouble? Do people read "I like kittens" on King Corny's LJ and assume it means he'll be banning ferrets for the duration of the reign?

Off to brunch bright and ugly this morning with thelancrewitch, seagoon, naturalredhead, madradish, icansinghigher, monnsqueak, Monsieur la boîte des chiens, Petra and Dave. Many free-range eggs were sacrificed to our brunching lusts. Behold the Radish of Madness in her guise as a woollen Martian! Marvel at the image of a Seagoon, photographed at brunch on a Sunday morning without his customary hung-over look! Stare in amazement at the first bass to set foot on the alien planet Soprano ("I wandered through the weird and lurid landscape of another planet; for the vegetation which gives Mars its red appearance had taken root on Earth"). See, people? In Canberra, we know how to brunch.

Many stories were shared of choral goings-on. It's vaguely pleasant to hear the news -- I'm particularly impressed that SUMS has finally divested itself of El Directore, Conductor-For-Life Dame Bennett Anton McPherson OBE QED RSVP, who I gather has now retired to his dust farm in deepest Mudgee. I thought they'd never let him escape; he's been a painted-on and immoveable fixture in the job since the choir started in 1836, except for one semester when he took time off to fight in the Boer War, and another short period of about a fortnight during the Depression when he went on the road as John Steinbeck's batman. But the new lad is apparently fitting in; icansinghigher told me stories of him bitching out the tenors, so He'll Do Quite Nicely, thank you very much.

And now that I've met the Woman of the Box of the Dogs, I can see why he's given up his James Bondian -- nay! James Brownian! -- lifestyle and settled down to unmarried bliss: she looks good for him. A bit of a worry with the whole knitting fetish, but that's OK and at least she doesn't do Muttaburrasaurus impressions at small children, so that's a relief.

Went home to collapse. I seem to have developed a sore throat, so I'm off to the Medical Centre to be ignored by undereducated subcontinental immigrants and told it's all in my head, after which I shall while away a happy afternoon tidying an EDoD's bedroom and debugging software. Oh joy.

EDIT: Sorry - yasutani, had to delete your comment. The brunch venue was indeed the place you recognised, but I want to make it more difficult for random loonies and e-stalkers to find us at a whim. Given that we often go there for Sunday brunch, it's better if it's not possible to plot our whereabouts with just a Google search...

Behold! The four LJers of the Apocalypse!

The Elder Daughter of DOOOM and I went along to Politarchopolis's signature event, the Saint Valentine's Day Ball, which this year was run by Lady Alexandra Hartshorne as The Valentine's Day Massacre: an assassin's feast, complete with grisly murders. I caught up with, and photographed, syridian, japester, madradish and, briefly, icansinghigher, and whiled away several happy hours chatting, telling terrible jokes, watching the thunder and lightning and eventually the rain, and eat! eat!ing until we were no longer even remotely too thin.

An utterly splendid event, in the finest of fine Politarchopolan traditions, and one to be proud of. Very pleased.

My Beloved has spoken recently of the mushroom tarts from hell, which were her contribution to the buffet feast. They came out with the second remove and were wolfed down. I'm no fan of fungi (I know where they've been!) but these were spectacular. Ysabella over-catered, in true and proper Politarchopolan style, so we had a wodge to take home, which is a good thing because the Beloved and the BatPup elected not to come along due to extreme knackerdocity. The EDOD was a joy, of course, because she always is, and anyone who says otherwise has obviously not been paying attention.

(There was a moment there when I got to apply one of my personal favourite parenting principles, which is this: "No" is a valuable and precious thing, and must not be thrown about willy-nilly without due care and consideration; use it only when nothing else will do. The EDOD had managed to get her hems a bit damp by "accidentally" jumping into a puddle, but was being generally careful not to get too wet in the v. v. welcome rain. But I remembered that she'd changed out of the garb she'd worn to the picnic, earlier that day, when we dropped her off to her horse-riding lesson, which meant the garb was still in the car. So, I said, there is no possible reason why you should avoid having fun: go jump in puddles and get soaked, and when you're done we'll get your other garb and you can change. And as it was spoken, so it came to pass: she got utterly soaked and had a glorious time, and then she got changed and was perfectly happy for the rest of the night. Show me a "no" that could have had that much benefit!)

At Oriel's and the Baroness's request, I gave a short toast to the memory of Aveline after court, just saying something along the lines of: she was magnificent, and she touched all our lives in all sorts of ways, and the world is a less wondrous place for her departure, and we drank to her memory, those of us who knew her, and that was good. Kat, who knew her best of all, thought it was well spoken, so I'm happy with that.

Tomorrow, we shall head off to brunch with madradish, japester, icansinghigher, seagoon and naturalredhead, for the latter two are hosting the alto and the soprano at their palatial abode, and they often do brunch at a particularly nice spot of a Sunday. Her Radishness is looking forward to meeting the BatPup, having met and been impressed with her very well-behaved big sister.

But now, due to my own not inconsiderable knackerdocity, I'm off to bed.

Having a look through my profile, as I occasionally do, I got to wondering how people come up with their LJ nicks (and do they call it that, or is it an IRC thing?). Some I can guess, but others are mysterious:

Nicks From Names: These are the people whose nicks are based on their names or real-world nicknames (including SCA names on occasion):

alpha_angel, aunty_del, auntyyolly, bezique, celsa, daharja, deense, durry (although he says otherwise), erudito, evildrakey, expandakarl (but why "expanda-"?), irishmark, japester, jeff_duntemann, kaedhlin, le_dauncer, meljayles, misnim, mjch, nclean, oonaghsown, paxford, persephane, sethop (a Sys-Op named Seth), starplee, sui_001, tqd, and vonstrassburg.

Interests, Occupations and Affiliations: These are the people whose nicks come from something they like and/or do:

barmaidblog (anonymous writer of a blog about her life as a barmaid), baroquestar (a soprano, but still quite nice), basal_surge (insane geologist), bodgirl (of the Brotherhood of Death, not the Board of Directors!), damned_colonial (bit of a fan of that post-period historical stuff with the boats), doushkasmum (a Mum, I guess -- I don't think I know her personally and I do know her, though I don't know I know), icansinghigher (soprano -- and she can!), madradish (very fond of radishes -- or is she?), mr_bassman (I believe (though I don't know his real identity) that he plays bass guitar), muffled_melisma (I had to look this one up, but he plays music and the hurdy-gurdy, so he's a man of contradictions), priestbeast (last I heard he was training to be a priest in one of those little protestant sects), pwucs (proud member of the Piss-Weak Universal Choral Soceity), seagoon (the resemblance is eerie), stellar_muddle (an astrolognomer), thelancrewitch (might be a little tiny bit fond of Pratchett books, possibly), vikingrose (a viking lass -- a really really cute one in fact), whooz_queen (Queen of the Tenors, channelling Queenie from Blackadder for her nickname), and wizard_foots (a Wizard who lives in Footscray).

Hair: These are the redheads. Redheads are blondes who haven't had the fire -- umm, never mind. Anyhow, they're proud of their hair, and so they should be:

alintaflame (maybe? I'm fairly sure she had red hair), lauredhel (by way of geekdom), miladyred and naturalredhead.

Mysteries: That just leaves the inexplicable names, the ones I can't figure out to a greater or lesser degree. Care to tell us a story, you lot?

aussiemandias, bendsinister, demiurgically_m, dormant_dragon, gelignite, i_autumnheart, kitling, persimmon_queen, pezzae, razorgirl_au, syridian, thebluefairy, wenchilada, and yasutani.

---

EDIT: The Explained!

anthraxia (sisterly love), arthwollipot (this is the one my Beloved most wanted to find out), astemudfoot (hobbits and helpers and hippies, oh my!), boojumlol (the snark was a boojum, you see!), ethanthescribe (another bloody gamer), fairy_nuff (a valiant effort to fight the angst), foxe (from her youth -- which wasn't very long ago!), frodolover (Sam will kill him if he tries anything), jwm (one o' them scientificko-fictional fans, ah reckon), ingysledge (Wham!), little_foxy (the advice of a wise man), mavisgrizltits (WHAT'S THAT?? SCHPEAK UP!!!), nessbrain (I remember this one: it was the name she picked for an older blog that I was hosting), nobble (signs and portents), onceler21 (I mustn't be reading to my daughters enough, cos I missed this completely), politas ("My name is not important, Earth man"), quadrapop (from certain matters of lifestyle that I suspect are far too racy for a tame, timid bat like me to contemplate), realmotk (clearly I should have a separate category just for Goon Show references), sesquipedeviant (a foot and a half of what, exactly? Hmmmm?), unfoldedreality (Jobsian randomness), and uniqueid (very logical, Captain).

(Footnote: Good gods, what a lot of comments! You know, I could call this a meme, and then you'd all have to do it too. Granted the HTML editing could drive you all mad, but knowing most of you lot, it'd be a short trip.)

Wandering through my lj-friends' f-lists, I keep encountering the oddest linkages. How, exactly, does tqd know deense? I haven't even met the latter, as far as I know, although I plan to seek her out and introduce myself if we make it to Twelfth Night in Syddles. Or... how on earth does ethanthescribe, who is an old workmate of mine, know starplee, who is an old friend from my long-forgotten pre-SCAdian social circles? And how did madradish manage to befriend so many people from the Sydenite SCA and choral scene? I thought I and wizard_foots were just about the only choral/SCA crossovers in Lochac/AICSA. Guess not, huh?

And don't get me started on the mystery of the true identity of astemudfoot, bezique, celsa, jwm, little_foxy, mr_bassman, nclean and persephane, any of whom I may have met in Real Life but never put a proper name to. And SCAdians always have extra names; it makes remembering them harder and easier at the same time.

(If you find you've friended me and I haven't returned the favour, it's purely because I haven't figured out who you are yet. Don't be offended! Just reply to this or any other LJ entry and tell me who you are, and then if I remember you I'll friend you and you'll be privy to the (so far) bare handful of extra f-locked entries I've written. Yay.)