Chawlk

1. Drawar
2. Fenxy
3. Decaflon
4. Two Credits
5. Wriging
6. Loose Suits
7. Chixe
8. Dud3s
9. Wing Colors

 

I never play myself anymore, and when I did play it tended to be online instead of table-top, but large numbers of my friends DM and play various games including AD&D - then again, one of my best mates married to the manager of the local Forbidden Planet, so that's hardly surprising!

(They keep trying to make me LARP and I run away and hide behind the sofa in terror...)

Being on the third floor, I'm blissfully mouse free (though my brothers fourth floor NY apartment wasn't mouse free, so go figure). We do have rats in the rubbish areas though. *shudder* With them, it's see one and back away carefully. The rats in Southampton are like Shredder in TMNT - I swear the damn things are organised and plan.

It's probably the prevalence of rats that means we don't have any mice though!

I grew up in the country though, so mice were fairly common till we got a cat who I think was just a very small tiger. She didn't want cat food for breakfast - she'd much prefer freshly caught mouse from the garden shed!

Stuffed with rosemary and garlic is pretty much how we have it too. In a slightly odd twist of fate, our family Christmas dinners actually got nicer when my brother took over cooking responsibilities! The amount of washing up doubled because, like all men, he is genetically programmed to use every dish in the kitchen, but his food does tend to be very tasty.

And it's a sauce on top of the cheesecake. I'd link to the recipe but my site is currently off line (evil hosts).

In the UK, we traditionally have turkey for Christmas. As no one in our family can actually stand turkey (was there ever a more blah and boring meat?) we tend to have a roasted leg of lamb with all the trimmings on Christmas day. For Boxing Day it's normally a piece of roast beef, again with all the trimmings.

And of course there are all the little extras, like my mum's blackcurrant cheesecake which is our 'traditional' Christmas pudding, and mince pies, and gingerbread, and smoked salmon to nibble, and cheese & biscuits, and... More food than you can shake a stick at basically!

Welcome to Southampton :)

And try Scratch. They are a very good charity who, among other things, have their "Dorcas" project which collects good quality second hand furniture to then give to people who are in need for whatever reason (including victims of domestic abuse who have had to relocate quickly).

Failing that, send me a PM and I can see what I can do about putting it on our company classifieds for you - people are willing to take anything through them!

Workwise December is not a good month. We work on a quarterly basis and the end of year claim is due in on the 2nd of January... Taking holidays and everything into consideration, we have to have it all ready (as much as possible) by the middle of December.

Panic time basically.

Personally, I do tend to wind down a little from about the 10th of December. I think it's a hang over from school days when it was holiday time! Rather than taking it easy however, I tend to retreat into myself a little, going through everything that I've had hanging over me from the past year, trying to get straight for the new year.

In the end, I loved it. You're not the only one who found it hard to get into however - I had to stick it through the first chapters. Whilst Gibson has a glorious use of language, creating new expressions and ways of describing things, the book as a whole was slow to start. A few other people who I know have started the book but haven't managed to finish.

You're missing out on a gem however! What Gibson has to say at the end... Well worth the read in my opinion.

Dark. To be precise, Green & Blacks Maya Gold, which is 70% cocoa with cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla. Divine. Plus, the flavour hit is so intense that you can only eat a little bit at a time - that way, you eat less, so put on less weight.

That's what I keep telling myself anyway ;)

I'm another one of those who annoyingly doesn't have goals with regard traffic or money.

I'd like to keep the standard up at Bright Meadow, as I know I've been a little lax with my posting consistency lately. It shouldn't be so hard to post three new things each week, but it is!

Other than that, I would like to see a continuation of the trend for new people coming into the comments and joining the community that is building there. I also want to consolidate the readership I have already and keep them - I don't want to get new commenters at the expense of the old ones.

There's also been a couple of exciting opportunities and near-opportunities this year for Bright Meadow. I'd like 2008 to be the year they come to fruition and get to be concrete things I can talk about (I know, enigmatic, but then all the best top-secret plans are!)

Eeek, so hard to pick! I've enjoyed writing so many and I'm proud of so many more... Probably I'd have to say "And now I'm 25" rates as one of my top because for the longest time I never thought I'd made it to 25, let alone actually enjoy who I am and where my life is at right now when I got here!

I'd post a new picture, but I've been really good at hiding from cameras lately. Plus, my avatar is remarkably accurate (except my hair is now shorter).

The full thing is -
girl + internet = Bright Meadow

It is quite straightforward really. Bright Meadow is what happens when you take a girl who likes to write, add a high-speed internet connection, mix in a pinch of technological knowhow, and season with a splash of sarcasm.

I knew BoingBoing would come in handy eventually - they recently put up a link to this site which explains the whole Dvorak history in comic form, and at the end gives you a print-out guide to help you learn. Simply refer to the guide when looking for keys instead of looking at the keyboard. As any touch-typist will tell you, the more you look at the keys you are typing instead of relying on muscle memory, the slower you will be.

As for the benefits of Dvorak? I haven't played around enough with it myself (though I am tempted, if only to freak out people at work) but purportedly it's much faster and a lot easier on RSI prone wrists & fingers.

For the day-to-day I tend to rely on the OSX built in dictionary. It does most of what I need it to. After that, I might stray to an online dictionary like the Cambridge or Oxford versions.

However, I do have a copy of the Oxford Modern English Dictionary. I got it when I left prep school (age 13), it was signed by all my friends, and it is perfect for looking up the slightly more obscure words. When I was growing up there was an old(ish) copy of the OED on the bookshelves in the living room. It became something of a routine over Sunday lunch that we'd all get into a big argument about some word or other, and I'd be dispatched to look it up and settle things before things more dangerous than runner beans were thrown. It's left me with this need to have a physical dictionary around just in case!

@peroty - but did you fall in love with her at first communication? All the talking to her before you finally met probably had more than a little bit to do with it.

For me, I want to want to believe in love at first sight. I've read/watched so many romances over the years that part of me now believes that's how it should be. But really, I have to agree with most everyone else on this note: I believe in connection at first sight and lust at first sight, but love takes longer.

I am a great believer in going on gut feeling about people (I am rarely, if ever, wrong with my initial reactions to people). Some people set my hackles up. Other people (and I'm thinking of one in particular) you just see and feel an instant flip in the gut that says "this is a good person". Now I just have to persuade this other person that the feeling is mutual ;)

I will agree totally with what Andrew is saying - brb to me implies it's just going to be a short break in the conversation to deal with something that's come up. If it's going to be longer than 5 minutes, then I'll use X minutes or "later".

@peroty - aww, you're sweet. Knew there was a reason I liked you ;)

I'm refusing to actually look at the live tally because that is a cruel and unusual torture designed to make me want to drown in my morning cup of tea (there's no way Bright Meadow can win against the big blogs it's up against).

But I also refuse to give up so I will be voting away whenever I can, supporting my favourites.

Holy sugar and spice, you could knock me over with a... Something that is very easy to knock people over with. That has completely derailed my morning. In a good way, but still. I jumped up from the table to do a little Woot! of joy, tripped over the table leg, nocked the table, split my tea (narrowly missing my computer), and then I stubbed my toe.
The pain is worth it though. It's the first time I've been nominated for anything!

Thanks for the nominations people and congratulations to everyone who was brave enough to submit/poke other people into nominating you, even if you didn't make it through to the final. As Lifecruiser said - there were oodles of blogs submitted and it doesn't mean anything less if you weren't one of the ones selected. We all rock regardless :)

And let the voting commence!

I use Facebook and I am very selective with the apps I use. Like Erin, I loathe it when people have what seems like a zallion apps. It annoys me even more when people keep throwing things at me, or biting me or something and try to get me to add the app!

I use:
* a twitter app
* a flickr app to pull my pictures across
* an emote one (well, I've got to have a few smilies in my online life!

I have added, but only because I get bullied into it by a certain group of friends when I'm down the pub:
* x-me
* superpoke
* free gifts

And that's it.

How do I decide what to add/what not to add? I don't think I can really give a succinct answer unfortunately. I don't actually use FB actively - I maintain a presence there and use it to keep in touch with certain friends, but I don't live my life in it like some people.

When I do add an app, I want it to have the minimum number of pages to click through and I don't want it to immediately take me to an "Invite all your friends!" page. I firmly believe that if my friends want to add something to their profile, they will find it themselves.

Like Nils, MS is a big no way for me. I've got a few friends who use it and for their sakes I've tried but... I just can't get into it.

I'm mainly a twitter person, backed up by Facebook (and of course 9rules). I use Facebook because I actually know the majority of the people I have friended on there and it is very handy to keep in touch with some of my friends who insist on flitting round the country each week so I have no idea where they physically are, or who persist in loosing their mobile phones *rolleyes* Thinking of one person in particular, the only way I can reliably get in touch with her is FB.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a pre-publication copy of this so have been waiting to discuss it with someone for months!

So yes, hurry up and read it :)

I've never been big into Halloween - we Brits don't go quite as over board as some of the rest of the world! - but this year I've got a party to go to on Saturday. The theme is "Carnival Freak" and I still haven't got any inspiration...

Help?

Not to be a copy-cat, but I'd get my dream house built. I'm not telling you where because I don't want y'all to stalk me, asking me for some spare cash, but it would be the perfect blend of high and low tech. And eco-friendly of course.

If I'm not allowed to be a copy cat, I'd go on a trip into space. And fund research into penguins.

I'm another one taking a pass - for me it's simply that my poor old PowerBook would probably fall down flat and faint at the mere prospect of trying to run Leopard. Till I can sell my soul and scrape together enough cash for a replacement machine, I'll be sitting here pretty happy with Tiger thank you very much.

Even if I could do the upgrade, there's nothing in the features list that's really singing out to me to make me. To be fair, I work with someone who saw the Time Machine option and whipped out his credit card then and there, so I guess it depends what you're looking for in your OS. Tiger for me is a really comfortable and still pretty pair of shoes. Other than the momentary lure of "ooh, pretty, shiny new things!" there's no reason for me to switch. Yet.

I've lived enough of my life switching to and fro between US/UK date standards that I tend not to get too confused in online contexts, though I do always double check.

In my offline work, a good 80% of the people I work with on a daily basis have very basic literacy levels - there's no point sending them a letter telling them their appointment is on 26/11/2007. They just won't understand it. You have to spell it out, so that date would become Friday 26 November. As a rule of thumb it's "write it like you'd say it"

Something to bear in mind all you lovely webdesigners out there - not everyone using your website finds it as easy to read as you do (sorry, mini-rant triggered by a day of client-hassle caused by forms *I* found incomprehensible)

I really can bring nothing new to this note, but that's never stopped me before, so here goes:

What goals you set really depend on why you're blogging in the first place, but personally I try to make sure every post I write is the best I can make it. Even more importantly than that, the only goal I have for myself is that every comment left on Bright Meadow is responded to. There's nothing worse than having a reader leave a comment and it being ignored - I like to think that it's by doing this that I've built up the regular and loyal readership that I have.

My name is Cas and I write over at Bright Meadow.

I am based in the sunny south of the UK who, when not spending far too much time finding things to blog about, is trying to work out how post-grad research into archaeological computing can be parleyed into a career in publishing. Perhaps not surprisingly, this isn’t going so well, so during the day I work for local government, which isn’t actually as soul destroying as you might think.

I try and make the site the focus for a rambling chat among friends, both new and old, about sites, blogs, and other tid-bits gleaned from daily trawls of the Internet. It’s also part of an ongoing project to persuade fellow academics that the Web really isn’t such a scary place.

Throughout it all, I hope to aim for tone that is up-beat, self deprecating, gleefully irreverent, and blonde in a left-handed kind of way, with a healthy dollup of British sarcasm. If on occasion I make even one person stop, think, and look at something differently, then I am happy. If I’ve made people laugh, well, that’s even better.

That's all I have to say, other than I am most definitely not Bridget Jones.

Josh - I am partial to the odd crumpet, yes...

Josh - if you're in England, come say hello. We can share our blues together :)

*takes a deep breath*
*screams at the top of lungs*
ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Temps shouldn't temps shouldn't be this much bloody hassle!

I like to surround myself with stuff, so this question is really rather tricky to answer. Then I thought of the things that I make sure I have with me, the things which make me feel at "home" regardless of where I travel -

First would be my buddha statue which was a gift from a dear friend and has graced every place I've lived for the past ten years. When I travel I take a little wooden weeping buddha which was carved in front of me on the street in Kota Kinabalu (Borneo).

Second would be a notebook of some description. I've always got one to hand (a little one in my bag, a bigger one that wanders around the house from room to room, depending on where inspiration strikes). Ideas, shopping lists, rants, phone numbers... you name it, it gets written in my notebook. I genuinely would be lost without it.

Then I would go from the low-tech and serene to the source of much frustration in my life: my PowerBook. I love it to bits and, again, it goes most places with me (though the battery is starting to show it's 4+ year age). I use it for all of my writing so if "home" is where I unload what's in my head, the laptop/writing program could be called "home".

For things actually in the house, I would say:
* The kettle. With the kettle I can the make endless cups of tea which fuel me through the day. Tea makes me able to think, talk, write...
* And my chair, which is so perfect to curl up in and read a book or watch TV.

You would be surprised the number of things I start to write and then never actually hit the 'post' button on. It's not just blog posts, but comments and notes here on 9rules as well. Thinking about it, my reasons are pretty much seem the same as everyone else's:
* time
* thinking it/I am not worthy or interesting enough
* inability to make the words on the page sound like how I meant them in my head
* Not wanting to engage in the debate/argument - this one is particularly pertinent on sites other than Bright Meadow. Many is the time I will have something to say to contribute to the discussion, but I will hold back from hitting "post" because I just know that no matter how carefully crafted my response, someone is going to jump on it and it will fuel the whole shebang even further. I try to step away from conflict so holding my tongue is a BIG reason I don't post/comment/note more.

I have another reason as well. Writing for me is how I work through problems. If I've got something bubbling on my brain, I will invariably sit down at the laptop or with a notebook and write all my thoughts out onto the page. Somehow the act of forcing coherent sentences out of my ramblings, gives me the space to see my way through whatever is troubling me. Quite often by the time I've written whatever it is I've written in response to something, I've solved my problem, so don't see the point in posting the piece because it's served it's purpose.

And is probably awfully written so no one would want to read it and... we're back to points one and two!

Plus, I'm just a lurker at heart. I much prefer to sit back and watch conversations unfold around me than chip my oar in. Sticking your head above the parapet leads to an arrow through the neck more often than not!

But rest assured Nils, whenever you write something, it always makes me sit back, go hmmmmmmm, and gets my brain zinging down new paths. You've got a talent. Use it more.

When I was at uni the first time round, we only had dial-up in the house, so I wasn't that tempted to stray. Plus, it was before 9rules so really, what was there to look at on the internet?

The second time around, I had a T1 line plugged straight into my room. Oh the sweet siren call of the internet. Luckily for me, I was researching the internet, so I could just tell my supervisor I was "researching" whenever he caught me "playing" in the lab...

In all seriousness, the only real solution is turn off the wifi and/or develop some rigid self control. If things are really that desperate, get a housemate or something to password protect the network.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Phew. Much better. Why is there always one person at work who can drive you up the wall and down the other side?

I don't begrudge spending hours with one guy because he needs the extra support and he always says thank you, making it a pleasure to work with him. This one woman however, is just take-take-take. Nothing I can do pleases her, even though I jump through hoops to make sure she has what she needs (or thinks she needs), she changes her mind like she changes her lip gloss, and she has never in a year of working together said thank you.

I repeat, GRRRRRRRRRRRRR ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!

That was much, much harder than it needed to be for my poor addled brain. Perhaps I should hand in my geek hat?

Steps (for those who, like me, might be a little slow today)
1) drag the link that hthth talks about to your bookmarks bar.
2) edit it so it says what hthth says it should say

javascript:location.href='http://9rules.com/clips/post/?url='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)

3) start clipping things.

Not that complex, but it still took me ten minutes to work out!

Pretty much what everyone's been saying.
I use Safari for browsing. Firefox is too slow and I never got into Camino for some reason.

For writing I am totally in love with WriteRoom.

The only apps I actually use on a daily basis:
Mail
Safari
Vienna (rss reader)
WriteRoom
Skitch (Flickr uploader and basic photo playing)
Photoshop
MS Word on the very rare occasion I have to do work at home.

And that's it. I have other pieces of software, but I use them so rarely they make no never mind.