Sailbourne

Getting back on track with a weekly (at least) posting, after skipping half of January and all of February. Right after my declaration of intent to focus on the most important things and get more organized, life threw us a very big curve: Joe’s dad passed away. We were in San Jose for ten days, helping with funeral arrangements, going through paperwork, preparing for potential family drama (which, in the end, turned out to be a lot less dramatic than we were afraid of).

February, and now the first week of March, has passed far more quickly than even a short month ought to, I think. But I feel like I’m finally able to focus and get my head back around some of the projects that I need to get going. One of them is a last-ditch attempt to revitalize the message board I run, The Starlight Teahouse.

The Teahouse is a general-interest message board or forum, where folks can discuss creative efforts, the latest in pop culture, the news of the day, politics, pets, and (of course!) tea. You can join role-playing games that run on the forum, try your hand at a round robin story written five words at a time, or share your favorite quotations. The Okamisan (that’s me!) does her best to keep the atmosphere friendly, civil, and spam-free. There are also no advertisements on the board for registered, signed-in members — and membership is absolutely free!

Over the past year or so, Facebook has offered some of the interactive possibilities that can be found at the Teahouse, but the Teahouse does offer a few things Facebook doesn’t. We won’t change our format every few months; there are no ads (once you are registered and signed in); and you won’t have to get all of your friends to join the game you’re playing in order to have any hope of success in it — or, for those who aren’t into games, you don’t have to set a bunch of filters to bypass a bazillion automated game-related postings. And when someone posts an item of interest on the Teahouse, you’re much less likely to miss it!

Please stop by The Starlight Teahouse and have a look around. Sign up and start a discussion. It would really make my day. And maybe yours too!

My Life According To the Austin Lounge Lizards

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to 15 people you like and include me (presuming I’m someone you like). You can’t use the artist I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It’s a lot harder than you think! Repost as ‘my life according to (artist name)’.

Pick Your Artist: Austin Lounge Lizards

Are you male or female:
Big Tex’s Girl

Describe yourself:
Forty Years Old and I’m Livin’ In My Mom’s Garage

How do you feel:
We’ve Been Through Some Crappy Times Before

Describe where you currently live:
A Hundred Miles of Dry

If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
Dallas, Texas

Your favourite form of transportation:
Hey Little Minivan

Your best friend:
Grandpa’s Hologram

You and your best friends are:
Swingin’ From Your Crystal Chandeliers

What’s the weather like:
Ain’t Gonna Rain

Favourite time of day:
Mourning Edition

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called:
The Illusion Travels By Stock Car (Petty/Bunuel)

What is life to you:
Hillbillies in a Haunted House

Your relationship:
He’s Just a Friend

Your fear:
Pizza on the Ground

Thought for the day:
Life Is Hard, But Life Is Hardest When You’re Dumb

How I would like to die:
Paint Me On Velvet

My soul’s present condition:
Jesus Loves Me (But He Can’t Stand You)

My motto:
Do Not Go To Tennessee

These have been stacking up, so a series of short posts to deal with them.  Tagging some folks in the Facebook echo.

This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me because I’m interested in seeing what books my friends choose …

1. The Hot Zone, by Richard Preston
2. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Fever Pitch, by Nick Hornby
4. (a slight cheat, perhaps, but …) Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, by E. Gary Gygax
5. All Creatures Great and Small, by James Herriot
6. The Gathering Storm, by Winston S. Churchill
7. Since Yesterday, by Frederick Lewis Allen
8. The Living Shadow, by Maxwell Grant (Walter B. Gibson)
9. The Tarot: the Origins, Meaning, and Uses of the Cards, by Alfred Douglas
10. The Portable Jung, by Carl G. Jung; edited by Joseph Campbell
11. The Norton Anthology of Poetry (second edition, shorter version)
12. All the President’s Men, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
13. Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, by Alan Dean Foster
14. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer
15. Justice at Nuremberg, by Robert E. Conot

[Another meme, but no requirements to pass it on ... unless you want to buy in, so to speak.]

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations so please read carefully:

• I make no guarantees that you will like what I make.
• What I create will be just for you.
• It’ll be done this year (2009).
• You have no clue what it’s going to be. It will be something made in the real world and not something over the internet. It may be a mixed CD. It may be a poem. It may be a felt mouse or a triple-chocolate cake or a handful of origami wish-stars. Who knows? Not you, that’s for sure! [not me either]
• I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

Here’s the fine print:

In return, all you need to do is post this text into a note of your own and make 5 things for 5 others.

[This is going out on my personal blog as well as over Facebook so I will go by the timestamps of the comments I get.  Not that I think there's gonna be a mad rush or anything, but maybe I'll be proved wrong.]

Since I didn’t follow up on the 16 random things, I’m going to try this one.  It’s taking me a while to think of stuff; please do bear with me.

1. My hair is naturally curly, and also pretty thick.  This caused me problems when I was young, because I hated to brush my hair.  My mother had to cut mats out of it more than once.
2. I wrote my first story at the age of ten or eleven.  I gave the manuscript to my fifth-grade teacher and never saw it again.  (I moved to another city in the middle of that year, and she neglected to keep in touch with me.)
3. I have applied for and failed to get a job working at McDonald’s.  (Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to the interview carrying a copy of Arthur Koestler’s The Ghost in the Machine.)
4. I was born in Texas, but haven’t lived there since I was a few months old.
5. One of my worst-ever experiences as a writer was my one college creative writing class.
6. The only time I have traveled outside the continental USA was a trip to Victoria, BC in the summer of 2007.
7. As far as I’m concerned, the Star Wars prequels and A View to a Kill never happened.  I’m trying to figure out how to get rid of Star Trek made after “The Voyage Home” plus all the series made after the animated one.
8. I’m a fan of singer Chris De Burgh, but “The Lady In Red” (just about the only song of his that anyone in this country has ever heard of) is actually one of my least favorite songs.
9. I have had dogs, cats, hamsters and fish as pets; I really wanted a snake when I was little.
10. I have attended two different high schools and four different colleges; I have a diploma but no degrees.
11. I have created an alternate universe version of our world in the 1930s for the pulp adventure game I run.  Some of its history goes back thousands of years.
12. I’m left-handed but usually hold the pen the way a right-handed person does.
13. I love the smell of coffee but not the taste.  Despite the fact that I don’t drink it, I’m told I make quite good coffee.
14. My first paying job (aside from babysitting) was washing dishes for a motel diner.
15. My two main online identities — Sailbourne and Ayeshalan — are both names I created for RPG characters.
16. The first Doctor Who show I ever saw was “The Five Doctors” in the fall of 1984.  I actually understood that these five characters were the same character.
17. I’ve been to a live professional baseball game three times and a live rock concert once.
18. I was reading Agatha Christie when most kids my age were reading Nancy Drew.  I tried reading Nancy Drew a couple times but didn’t like it because there weren’t any murders.
19. I have two holes pierced in each earlobe and two tattoos.  I’d like to get one more tattoo, but no more piercings.
20. The one “domestic skill” I’m consistently good at is cooking.  I would like to master candy-making and mixology.
21. I learned how to write computer programs on a Commodore VIC-20 with a cassette tape drive.
22. I presently own three pairs of shoes.  I dislike buying shoes.
23. My Meyers-Briggs Type Inventory profile is INFP.
24. I have voted in six Presidential elections; always Democratic except in 2000.  Yeah, I voted for Nader.  It seemed like a good idea at the time …
25. The bulk of my ethnic hodgepodge is Northern Irish and Italian.  I do not lose my temper easily — but when I do, it can get really ugly.

Here’s the rules for my Facebook friends:
Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.

Looking for a relaxed, easy-going online spot to chat about the latest in news, events, and pop culture?  Want a place to compare notes on writing, art, sports … or tea?  Looking for a friendly place to share your favorite pet stories?

Writers — want a fun place to talk about the great art and craft of writing, where any genre and any level of experience is welcome?

Want to take part in a roleplaying game (or, if you prefer, collaborative storytelling) where the only limit is your creativity and imagination?  Pulp adventure, high fantasy, Babylon 5 or Star Trek — there’s a wide choice, or you could even start your own game.

You can find all of this and more at The Starlight Teahouse.  There are contests too!  Come check us out!

A special offer for my friends who read this message on Facebook:  send me a message with your email address, and I’ll create your account for you!

Thanks to Alida Saxon, longtime Teahouse member, who created the lovely logo above.

While doing some research for It Was 20 Years Ago Today, I happened across one of the coolest websites I’ve found in quite some time:  MoreBirthdays.com.  Submit your birthdate, and the site will render your age in the years of the other planets in the solar system.  It’ll also tell you your age in hours, minutes, or weeks.

I submitted my own birthday and found out that I’ll be 22 million minutes old on October 6.  Two days later, I’ll turn 68 in Venusian years.  I’ll be a senior citizen by the time I turn 2 in Saturnian years, and if I’m lucky, I might survive to the age of one Uranian year.

But my favorite was my age in Martian years.  I’m just barely 22.