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Books Memes

Meme: 10 books

What’s old is new again… the 10 books meme struck me on Facebook. I thought I’d toss the answers here, so I can be amused at how much they change next time it rolls around.

10 Books that changed my life upon first reading them and have stayed with me: (via Will Johnson and Tony Ridgway)

10. Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion
9. Several Piers Anthony series: Xanth, Bio of a Space Tyrant, and Incarnations of Immortality
8. Ender’s Game
7. The Time of the Dark
6. The Chronicles of Amber
5. The Eye of the Heron. A great prompt to examine pacifism, the difficulty in adhering to it… and to think about success and failure of non-violence as a movement. All of her Hainish/Ekumen novels prompt thought about cultural influences and nature/nurture in worlds with very different nurture.
4. The Chronicles of Narnia. I read the covers off of them. Then I heard how it had all been a trick to proselytize, which led me to carefully reread and notice the parallels. Soon I appreciated how well drawn they were and how appealing Narnia’s story is. Streamlined for kids; rough in important ways. The stone table scene delivers what feels overwrought or like torture porn in telling Jesus’ life.
3. Red Box D&D/AD&D: I read, and mused, and studied, and researched—and built worlds for myself and my friends to inhabit. In many ways THE most influential book in terms of guiding how I spend my days and what I think about.
2. The Last Herald Mage: Magic’s Pawn. Lackey’s hurting, misunderstood young hero made homosexuality painfully normal, by experiencing the confusion and longing for myself.
1. A Wizard of Earthsea. Precise, beautiful writing, a story with a moral; difficult relationships, and acceptance that we all die. The third book, The Furthest Shore, was similarly powerful–though it taught a sense of balance, restraint, and provided a vision of life as an old person that seemed pretty cool all the same.

Categories
Memes

Highest Hearable Tones

My hearing is almost as bad as I imagined. No loud music, but I’m still in cranky old person hearing ranges!

You thought you were really with it and in with your younger colleagues but they just laugh at you because you can’t hear beyond this!

The highest pitched ultrasonic mosquito ringtone that I can hear is 14.1kHz

Find out which ultrasonic ringtones you can hear!
Categories
Memes

Eight random facts

From Heather at Errant Thoughts:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. List eight (8) random facts about yourself.
3. Tag eight people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving them a comment on their blogs.

Eight random facts. Hmm…

1) I learned roleplaying at lunch time, at school, in a game run by two teachers: Mr. Reid and Mr. Martin. It was a zany 1e dungeon crawl. Mr. Martin is my dad.

2) I like to learn things in spurts. I’ll happily read fiction or work related stuff for six months, then I’ll suddenly go on a self improvement kick and decide to learn about something new, often a period of history. The most recent kick was China; I enjoyed a few histories and a solid memoir, Wild Swans, which did a great job of showing life over the previous three generations of China. While I enjoyed the broad sweep of history books, Wild Swans grounded me. Seeing the cultural revolution from a teen’s point of view was powerful.

3) The learning spurt I was on when I met Jennifer was America’s revolutionary and founding era. I waded through about half of the Federalist Papers. Interestingly, I found that reading the Federalist Papers made me very curious about the anti-Federalist papers, because so many of the strongest papers seem to be responses to specific anti-Federalist paper claims.

Categories
Memes

Celebrity Look Alikes

Via Ilyka:

Categories
Memes

Birthday “test”/meme

***Your Birthdate: September 24***

You understand people well and are a natural born therapist.
A peacemaker, people always seem to get along when you are around.
You tend to be a father or mother figure to friends, even to those older than you.
You enjoy your role, and you find that you are close to many people.

Your strength: Your devotion

Your weakness: Reliance on others for happiness

Your power color: Lilac

Your power symbol: Heart

Your power month: June

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?
http://www.blogthings.com/whatdoesyourbirthdatemeanquiz/

Categories
Memes

Reading Planning Wearing meme

(from Judd’s, Reading Planning Wearing meme)

Reading: In the middle of The Gods Themselves by Issac Asimov. So far I’m enjoying it quite a bit– there’s better characterization and intriguing interpersonal interactions.

Planning: On tonight’s game and the live Xen’drik that I’ll return to after the Thanksgiving.

Wearing: Blue slacks, blue dress shirt w/ 5x vertical stripes

Categories
Memes

Procrastination Meme

A very random meme from The Happy Feminist.

When was the last time you shaved? This morning.

What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.?Kissing my girl goodbye and heading up the stairs to work

What were you doing 15 minutes ago? Watching the hilti guy setup for a presentation out of the corner of my eye

Categories
Memes

Twelve Characters

From Fairplay comes the 12 Character Meme.

First, write down 12 characters you’ve played.
1. Daryl (Amber Diceless)
2. Graal (Shadowrun)
3. Jack (Vampire)
4. Kogor (D&D 3.5)
5. Hrsai (D&D 3.5)
6. Takender Wholesbane (Wheel of Time homebrew)
7. Alanora (AD&D)
8. Kader Firdazz (Star Wars d6)
9. Jeremiah Hiral (Champions)
10. Tav’var (Star Wars d6)
11. Flint Despada (Star Wars d6)
12. Jeremiah (Mage: The Ascension)

Then you answer questions. Don’t go to the next step without writing down 12 characters first.

Categories
Memes Roleplaying

Ranking your favorite campaigns

Strangely, I seem to be contrary to the trend on this Treasure Tables post, where the favorite campaigns are the eldest. I suspect that’s because many of them had obvious flaws… like the high school “split but we’ll ignore it and play together” group.

1. Mage: The Ascension (GM, mid/late 20s) To Sway the Stones
2. Mage: The Ascension [player, mid 20s]. Chris’s Beyond the Portal
> D&D3.5: The current Dragon’s Talons game [player, early 30s]
3. AD&D [player, mid/late 20s] Skellwoods Campaign
4. AD&D [player, college] World-spanning, w/ Sython
5. Mage 1st [GM, college]: Ender Peskins and friends
6. D&D 3.0 [player, late 20s]. Strife and Pride.
7. Vampire 2nd [player, mid 20s]. Will’s Fresno Chronicles
8. Shadowrun [player, 30]: Graal
9. AD&D [GM, High School]: My first long, successful game
10. Battletech (player, High School). “Kizmaz” and the Ogre

Categories
Memes

Meme of Fours

Four jobs you have had in your life:
Corral building handy-kid
Computer lab support guy
Draftsman
Engineer

(more of the meme below)