Amue Me III

[electricpaladin]

ladypimpernel and I had a great weekend. The highlight was probably babysitting the twins. Abby's cousin Brad and his wife Jennifer have recently produced a pair of adorable twin girls named Isabelle (Izzy) and Callista (Callie). Abby and I volunteered to give Brad and Jen the night off.

We arrived, settled in, and played with the babies while Brad and Jen got ready for their date. Then Brad bought us takeout (Indian pizza - the best food ever), put the babies to sleep, and left. All we had to do was hang out near the baby monitor, eat Indian pizza, and do what we would have done anyway - namely, sit around playing Exalted.

The babies were ridiculously cute. They're almost a year old, at the sit up and pay attention to the world, loves loud noises, smiles and laughs stage. They were very easy to please (even Izzy, who's the grumpy baby). All I had to do was snap two nesting plastic hemispheres together to form a sphere with a plastic cup inside so that shaking it made an unholy racket, and they were in heaven. When I invented the Power Spoon (sliding a smaller plastic sphere onto a large wooden spoon the twins like to chew on) I was probably voted best babysitter ever. Or would have been, if the babies understood democracy.

The upshot of the experience? I want to design a roleplaying game that uses babies as the randomizer. Just sit around with your gamer friends, a couple of babies, and see what happens. The concept needs work, clearly.

. . .

Question One

What is the story behind your online handle/LJ username?

Question Two

What was your strangest childhood fear?

Question Three

Well, on Friday I asked you what you expected from the debates, so now I'll ask the next logical question: if you saw them, what did you think of them?

Comments

[homais.livejournal.com]

1) You know this, no doubt, but homais is a minor character in Madame Bovary. At the end of high school, I got a long, twitchy, incomprehensible, brilliant rant from a friend in which he called himself the "avatar of Homais". It's a cute line: Homais is a pompous bourgeois windbag who (self-importantly) goes on and on in obnoxious platitudes about things that are only of interest to him. It seemed like the perfect name for a blog.

2) That I would become black. Around age four, I noticed that the palms of black people's hands were more whitish, so somehow I assumed that they had once been white and that palms were the last thing to transform. From that, I assumed that everyone starts one race and ends up the other. So, since I was born white, I would become black. This didn't exactly terrify me, but I was really bothered by the thought - I knew even then that there was some sort of discrimination against black people, and I didn't want to be discriminated against.

3) I watched the debate drunk. Drunker than I've been in a while. The (very socially bubbly) first years in my program threw a debate party (hey, we're political scientists), and the drinking game started. Once we made the word 'pork' a cue to drink, all of us got very drunk. So in a way I have a very interesting take on the debate: I was a little too out of it to really catch the substance of what was being said, but I did see the mannerisms of the candidates, their self-presentation, their speech cadences, their postures. I got all the style and none of the substance. From that perspective, McCain won. He was cool, smooth, collected. Obama was stiffer, stuttered, seemed to vacillate between combative and dignifiedly technocratic in a way that really didn't work, emotionally speaking. I was very surprised to wake up the next day and see that people thought Obama did reasonably well.

[educatedmonkey.livejournal.com]

1) because that is what I am. An educated monkey

2) stormship troopers coming into my house. It was a bad dream I had when I was little that stayed with me.

3)I think McCain did better, but the polls say otherwise, so what do I know. I have a bracelet too. Enough said. The real fun is Thursday. I recommend watching the Palin interview by Couric, to lower your standards appropriately. At the moment, I'll be impressed with coherent thoughts.

Actual quote "That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help
those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to
help shore up our economy, helping the--it's got to be all about job
creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right
track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in
spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for
Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a
competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the
trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All
those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a
part of that."

SNL take on this http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/28/gov_palin_gets_the_snl_treatme.html

please note how the writers didn't really make up any lines for her


Oh, and yay for cute kids

[queenbast.livejournal.com]

I will answer your questions with a question:

how the hell do I call you? 'cause I totally tried the other night and your phone was all "I don't exist anymore!" and I was sad. very sad. I cried.

Thats a lie, I didn't cry, but I *do* want to be able to call you :P

*hugs*

[electricpaladin.livejournal.com]

My phone is working again as of... three hours ago. So don't cry! Call my instead!

[ladypimpernel.livejournal.com]

Eek! I'm really sorry I didn't call you back. I was in class. I got home and I told Mark you called, but I completely forgot to call you and let you know the situation. (Or poke Mark hard enough that he used my phone to tell you.) I'm sorry!

[ladypimpernel.livejournal.com]

Honey, Callie is the grumpy baby, the smaller twin who liked to wave her arms at you. Izzy is the larger one, who was fascinated by whistling, and less grumpy. If Uncle Mark can't keep them straight, they're going to get a complex. I vote that one of your questions for Wednesday involve suggesting a baby randomizer mechanic.

Also, you know the answers to all the questions, but I'll go with it anyway.

1. I was Pimpernel on my first online journal, because I was mysterious and anonymous, and I loved the books and musical. Later it evolved to LadyPimpernel, because Pimpernel was taken most places, and I liked the fact that it sounded psuedo-medieval and also meant that I was sort of named after the Pimpernel's wife, Marguerite, who is badass.

2. Being abducted by aliens. Or alternately, mysteriously growing up and becoming a different person. People used to tell me I'd grow up and want different things and care about different things, and I couldn't figure out how that would happen without some huge, mysterious change taking place.

3. I had lots of thoughts, which you've heard, but mostly I wished Mitch would let us explain stuff, and/or make sarcastic comments. Next time, we should watch on my parents TiVo, so we can hit pause.

[educatedmonkey.livejournal.com]

This reminds of way back when I was little. There was color coding system. I forget if I was red or blue. This worked fine until my mother's mom didn't pay attention to the system, and now looking back a pictures we can't tell who is who.

[(Anonymous)]

For 1, a couple basic elements of my usernames:
ra: stands for Red Alert, my favorite computer game at the time I started creating screennames, and I've stuck with it since.
1330: SAT scores when I started creating usernames (8th grade).
mbrown: duh.
mx: Abbreviation for MiddleseX, my high school.

I can't really recall an answer to two. I know I had fears, but I'm not really sure that I'd call any of them strange (e.g. insects/spiders).

For 3, I didn't really bother to watch them, partially 'cause my father was visiting and partially 'cause, honestly, I never really see the utility of debates.

[ra1330.livejournal.com]

Oops, that was me.

I'm taking the bait yet again...

[last-soldier.livejournal.com]

1. I named myself after a Pearl Jam song that got released right after 9/11. I love Pearl Jam, have for a long time, and this song was both beautiful and a bit helpful during a rough time.

2. I used to hide under the covers whenever I watched Sesame Street and they showed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting sign. Don't ask.

3. The bar I was at was very loud, so I couldn't hear anything (it was DVR-ed, so I can watch it later). I do recall commenting that McCain smiled maniacally and looked like a Bond villain, and that his tie reminded me of peppermint and Jack White circa 1999.

[researcher.livejournal.com]

1) This online handle came because I was interrupted in the middle of working on a paper for a game of Tetrinet. It just...fit for a long time.

2) I was terrified of a monster that was based on a turkey from a weird ass Nickelodeon show.