Interests Meme

LJ Interests meme results c.j. cherryh:C.J. Cherryh writes hard science fiction and very dark fantasy. I've been reading her since the 70's. dorothy dunnett:My previous obsession. She wrote historical novels and created one of the most charismatic heroes ever: Francis Crawford of Lymond. Lymond is beautiful, brilliant, sardonic, bi, flirts with death, and had a hellacious childhood. Dunnett writes about him using the most vivid, lush prose of my experience. neal stephenson:Another author. (Can you say WordNerd?)A double whammy, Stephenson writes both science fiction (Snowcrash) and wonderful historical fiction (The Baroque Trilogy). He's also an inveterate punster and a very funny writer, in my opinion. qaf fanfic:Reading and writing. queer as folk:Surprise! rufus wainwright:Complicated melodies, complicated lyrics: I like complicated. (See Cherryh, Dunnett, and Stephenson above.)Also quite pretty.I like pretty. snood:O.K., not everything I like is complicated. Snood is a computer game where you shoot things. I'm at a 12% win rate on the Evil level, up from 11%. Nothing to brag about, believe me. travel:I like traveling in the U.S., abroad, alone, with tour groups, with friends, in the winter, spring, and fall. I like traveling and do as much as I can. I've been to Ottawa, San Francisco, China, New York City, Sweden, Vermont, Denmark, New Orleans (pre-Katrina, Norway, Toronto, France, and Great Britain. My passport is up-to-date and I can be packed and ready to go tomorrow morning.::Enter your LJ user name, and 10 interests will be selected from your interest list.

Book Meme

From shadownyc1. Grab the nearest book.2. Open the book to page 123.3. Find the fifth sentence.4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.At my elbow:"The coral atolls in Mangrava lagoon had no good raw stone at all, and even the volcanic islands offered only relatively coarse-grained basalt."This is from Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. I'm about half through and there's a lot more about failure than success, which makes for somewhat depressing reading. Collapse is interesting and instructive, but I don't think it's going to change my world view the way Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel did. FanSee

Malta picspam

This is the third time I've tried to post this. Grrr. Anyway, unless I totally lose it, there will be way too many pictures of my trip to Malta under this LJ cut:The Grand Harbour, Malta. Malta is made up of three small islands in the Mediterranean, south of Sicily.The Grand Harbour.A typical tourist in a typical pose.Shopping street, Valletta. Valletta is the principal city of Malta.Naptime.Judy, my companion for this trip, with the Citadel in Birgu in the background.Me and Judy, Birgu.Typical Maltese street, this one in Birgu.Cul de sac in Birgu.Signage showing the Maltese language, an amalgam of Italian and Arabic, with perhaps a little Phoenician thrown in.Excavations at a prehistoric site on Gozo, the second largest of the three islands.19th C. graffiti at the excavations.Gozo was the scenic high-light of my visit to Malta.Gozo.Gozo.Gozo.Mdina, the silent city; i.e., few people live there anymore. It is surrounded by the modern city of Rabat.Old and new in Mdina.

Malta picspam

This is the third time I've tried to post this. Grrr. Anyway, unless I totally lose it, there will be way too many pictures of my trip to Malta under this LJ cut:The Grand Harbour, Malta. Malta is made up of three small islands in the Mediterranean, south of Sicily.The Grand Harbour.A typical tourist in a typical pose.Shopping street, Valletta. Valletta is the principal city of Malta.Naptime.Judy, my companion for this trip, with the Citadel in Birgu in the background.Me and Judy, Birgu.Typical Maltese street, this one in Birgu.Cul de sac in Birgu.Signage showing the Maltese language, an amalgam of Italian and Arabic, with perhaps a little Phoenician thrown in.Excavations at a prehistoric site on Gozo, the second largest of the three islands.19th C. graffiti at the excavations.Gozo was the scenic high-light of my visit to Malta.Gozo.Gozo.Gozo.Mdina, the silent city; i.e., few people live there anymore. It is surrounded by the modern city of Rabat.Old and new in Mdina.

Addicted

This is going to shock you, but I have addictive tendencies.Besides QAF, I am addicted to computer games, especially Snood. I have played literally thousands of games, so many that I no longer play for a high score. (The highest I ever got was 23,000.) No, now I play to raise my "Percent Won" percentage. While I was still playing for a high score, I drove my "Percent Won" percentage down to 11%. With great effort and many many games, I have finally broken the 12% barrier and am hanging on by the skin of my teeth. The last time I hit 12%, I played while I was recovering from a stomach virus. Bad move! It's taken me several weeks to recoup from the damage I did in one day. I get news bulletins from Snood - somehow I don't think I'm the demographic they're aiming at. FanSee