Whee! Driving!

[slipjig3]

figmentj and I have returned from the wilds of New Jersey after an awesome weekend event, and as reports of LJ's death have been grossly exaggerated I'm realizing that I have no hope of getting caught up on my friends list. If anything has happened any time since Thursday or so that you think I should be aware of, please let me know in comments. Thank you!

Meanwhile, stories from the weekend will follow at a time when I haven't recently put in several hours of driving, but I will pause to say, only tangentially related to the weekend, that In Time is awesome. As are bacon brownies. And other stuff. Definitely other stuff.

And one other thing: I'm not doing LJ Idol at all, but if I were, this week's topic would have made me quit outright on general principle, bye or no bye. Those of you playing at home, you know what I'm talking about. Just sayin'.

Comments

[tigrkittn.livejournal.com]

I can't help wondering if the mysterious "weekend event" was a convention I just discovered a couple of days ago and spent much time online with someone discussing the awesome possibilities.

Or, it could be something completely else. I shall wait and see!

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

It was, indeed, a convention. And the fact that neither of us is mentioning the name of it is probably an indication that we're talking about the same thing. :) A post will follow.

[tigrkittn.livejournal.com]

*squeals* I want to hear everything! LOL

[naturespirit.livejournal.com]

Copy-pasted from my last journal entry:
I have an interview on Thursday!!! It's for a Systems Engineer position at General Dynamics, and I'm terribly excited. I didn't have *quite* enough experience for the job I applied for, so they created an entry level version for me. This is promising :) I'd be working on Naval ships, hopefully the Littoral Combat Ship, which apparently does more humanitarian stuff; mine sweeping, red cross support, etc. If I have a choice I'd rather work on that, but I'm not going to turn down the job if I'm working on a more weapons oriented ship. They're going to get made whether I'm there or not and I've got students loans to pay off. It's out in Pittsfield, a bit of a long commute but doable.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

OOOOH! *crosses fingers*

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

It would have made you quit..? I'm confused.

[tigrkittn.livejournal.com]

Me too. Inside joke maybe?

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

See my response to elionwyr. I know it was meant as a challenge, and some people have risen to that challenge amazingly well (your piece was wonderful, by the way), but I think I'd feel too much like I was being made to jump through hoops.

[tigrkittn.livejournal.com]

Oh hell, the whole game is about jumping through hoops. It's Gary's primary source of joy in life. Just gotta find tricky ways around it, or set the hoop on fire, or turn it into a Hula Hoop. ;)

ETA: Oh, and *thank you!* regarding my entry. Week 3 seems to be "I can't believe I'm posting this" week. Last year I wrote about getting a brazilian wax. It's like the game is a drug and I can't help myself...

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Because it's a stupid topic. Not just stupid, but insultingly stupid, to the point that I'd feel disrespected by the organizers for even being put in that position.

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

Huh. Ok.
I thought it was kinda fun. *shrug*

[tigrkittn.livejournal.com]

Please note that I'm not baiting you or trying to be difficult here, I'm sincerely interested in your opinion- in what way is it a dumb topic? It can be taken literally (boo!), punnishly (or whatever the real word for that is), lazily (I've read too many entries about just-plain-poop already, and I've barely started), or metaphorically. To me, the best topics are the ones with a variety of "takes" for players to interpret, so we have a lot of options. This certainly wasn't what I'd call an awesome topic, but I didn't think it was exceptionally bad either. Annoying, since I'd rather not read about poo and we seem to have a lot of lazy players (whoops, did I say that out loud?) but no worse than many others over the years.

[rain-herself.livejournal.com]

I know you weren't asking me directly, but I figured since I was in the conversation, more data isn't bad. :) For me, the answer is in what you said last. You'd rather not read about poo, and I'd rather not write about it. Obviously there are ways to interpret the topic so that you're not actually writing about what it is (and I agree that you did a lovely job with that), but to me it felt like being caught between ridicule and contrivance, and neither of those directions really appeals to me.

Shit doesn't inspire me altogether much. But, hey, no one promised me inspiration. I'm not upset about it, just would rather wait to write on something that actually sparks me in some way, if I have the option. Which I did. Later, I won't have the option, and I'll be stuck writing whatever distasteful topic he comes up with, and that'll be okay too. :)

[tigrkittn.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I guess I saw it as a challenge - how to take something that sounds so obvious and write to the topic in a way that contained no actual poop or references to it. I've seen a few other entries do so, and they've been really fun to read. Hopefully there are bunches more I haven't found yet.

[rain-herself.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I took a bye instead of quitting (I am stubborn), but it is pretty egregiously dumb.

[mac-arthur-park.livejournal.com]

I was less than thrilled with the topic, but I'm pretty happy with my spin on it and glad that I didn't take the bye.