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robotnik2004Do you know what today is?
Of course you do!
It's Saint Amnesty to Post About Random Out of Date Stuff's Day!
For it was on this very day back in, oh, let's say the 80s, between the day that the eponymous Saint Amnesty to Post About Random Out of Date Stuff, patron saint of unpaid LiveJournal accounts, finished his grading for the term and the day that he went away on holiday, was killed by a car bomb—a holy car bomb, mind you—and the rest, as they say, is history. So it is that on this day every year, people with unpaid LiveJournal accounts honor St. Amnesty by posting about stuff that they meant to post about months ago, and get toffee.
* *
Stuff like the very cool homecoming gift I got when I returned to Canada this summer. You might recall that when I first moved down to Boston for grad school, I published a series of zines about my adventures. My very first zine borrowed the cover of Tintin in America, and looked like this:
So when I moved back to Canada mumble-mumble years later, my very good and very clever friend![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sneech515 cooked up this little number:
Sean printed this out poster size, and had it dry-mounted, and got a whole bunch of my Toronto friends to sign it with welcome back messages. Rock! It's the bossest thing ever, and it is now very prominently displayed in my office at work. Thanks, guys. (Note that the closest available approximation of a picture of Tintin in Canada was the cover from Tintin in Tibet. Looking out my window this morning, I'd say that's about accurate, yeti and all.)
The only fly in this soup of Tintinian thoughtfulness is that the last few months have been so hectic, I haven't actually seen a whole lot more of the Toronto crowd lately than I did before I came back. So some days, all the hopeful start-of-summer sentiments scrawled on the poster like "it'll be so great to have you back" and "it hasn't been the same without you" bring me down a little. Ah, well. There's a New Year's Resolution for me: See more of my friends. Make the drive into the city. Get them to schlep out here. Because I'm sure the baby's arrival won't interfere with that at all.
* *
Now, if I'm talking about a keen, creative homecoming present from several months ago, I must also mention a hella keen, creative going away present from even more months ago.
The high point of my gaming career in Boston, or one of them anyway, was undoubtedly Unknown USA, our big cross-country occult conspiracy chicken-fried road movie. And if you followed Unknown USA, you'll remember that Harry Smith's uncanny record collection, the Anthology of American Folk Music, played a significant role. I tried to explain the mysterious lure of the Anthology in this LiveJournal way back in February 2003. Well, what do you know, but before I left Boston the Ephemeral Circus chipped in and bought me the real-life Anthology. And not only that, they (specificallypeaseblossom and head58) also wrote and recorded the Anthology's one secret missing song around which considerable occult fooferah in our game transpired. HOW COOL IS THAT? Damn right.
In that post from 2003, I predicted that "the real-life Anthology might not be quite as unearthly as the one I imagine in our game world." But you know what? It actually is. It is a profoundly bizarre and wonderful collection of music, and even though I've pored over the lunatic liner notes and listened repeatedly, I haven't begun to feel like I've hit the bottom of its spooky strangeness. Anyway, I know I said it back then, but thanks again, guys, for everything. I miss you all heaps and heaps.
(The one thing I haven't done is loaded the Anthology onto my iPod. I just don't know if my head could handle the retro-futurist anachronism of listening to the Jilson Settlers through little white "mug-me" ear buds.)
* *
While I'm rehashing Unknown USA glory days, two recent posts bycalamityjon, of all people, struck celestial monochords of UUSA synchronicity:
OK, I know, I know. I'll probably be cursed to notice this stuff (and try vainly to make other people care) until the end of my days.
* *
And speaking of old LJ posts, I am positive it has not escaped your attention that I have gone back and painstakingly updated the URLs for all the images in my LiveJournal that used to be on my Harvard account. (That's just the kind of procrastinating you do when you don't feel like grading papers.) Now your enjoyment of old Charnel Gods teasers and Starchildren summaries need no longer be ruined by broken image links. I haven't gone into the various wikis (Dungeon Majesty, Starchildren, Unknown USA) and fixed the links there, but if anybody ever felt the need to, the path to all the images is just "www.robmacdougall.org/images/fasarchive" and then whatever the image's original name was. The only picture I couldn't restore, because you can't edit old comments, was this one, of which I remain unaccountably proud:
* *
One last thing I've been meaning to post about for ages is my brother J's adventures in China. I have noticed that a foolproof way to get people to ignore my LJ posts is to talk about my family, but bear with me: there's some crazy pictures in this one and I want to consult the expertise of the China Hands on this list.
My brother Jamie and his girlfriend Miranda have been in China since September, teaching English at a kindergarten and a business school in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. I know I have a couple of China experts on my Friends List, and I've meant for ages to quiz you for any general advice I could pass on to J and M about getting by there, about ways to deal with culture shock, about things to avoid, about things to definitely do. But as it happens, they seem to be doing very well, liking their jobs and the city and taking everything in stride without any sage advice from me.
The kindergarten kids apparently love them. Here they are swarming Miranda. (This picture vaguely reminds me of the International Communist Conspiracy from Monty Python's And Now For Something Completely Different.)
I've mentioned to some of you that, in the time honored tradition of Western colonialists, the school they're teaching at gives its students English names. But Jamie & Miranda let their students pick their own English names, so they have a class of little kids called things like "Superman", "Snow White", "Iguana", "Toy", and the like. J&M have nicknames too: the kids call them "Sun" and "Moon" (I'm not sure which is which), and their adult students at the business school have dubbed them "Phoenix and Dragon." Which sounds very impressive, but apparently it's just a euphemism for "chicken and snake," a local dish.
I don't get a whole lot of news updates from J, but he does post entertaining photos of his travels from time to time. And here is the photo that has me stumped. (Click on it to see a bigger version.)
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, as the kids say. What is going on here? J's caption says, simply, "Kindergarten Weapons Training." Is this the People's Revolutionary Army, Pokemon-division? This is both cute and freaky. I invite your insight and speculation.
The thing is, I sort of always knew my brother would grow up to train an army of killer Asian 4-year-olds.
* *
Well, that's all the random out of date stuff I can think of at the moment. And what do you know, maybe it's not so random after all. Because if there is an unconscious organizing theme here, it seems to be "people I miss who are (more or less) far away." So, to all my friends and family, and everyone reading this, wherever you are, compliments of the season, Happy St. Amnesty Day, Kwazee Kwanzaa, and all the rest. Wish you were here.
'Nuff said!
Of course you do!
It's Saint Amnesty to Post About Random Out of Date Stuff's Day!
For it was on this very day back in, oh, let's say the 80s, between the day that the eponymous Saint Amnesty to Post About Random Out of Date Stuff, patron saint of unpaid LiveJournal accounts, finished his grading for the term and the day that he went away on holiday, was killed by a car bomb—a holy car bomb, mind you—and the rest, as they say, is history. So it is that on this day every year, people with unpaid LiveJournal accounts honor St. Amnesty by posting about stuff that they meant to post about months ago, and get toffee.
* *
Stuff like the very cool homecoming gift I got when I returned to Canada this summer. You might recall that when I first moved down to Boston for grad school, I published a series of zines about my adventures. My very first zine borrowed the cover of Tintin in America, and looked like this:
So when I moved back to Canada mumble-mumble years later, my very good and very clever friend
sneech515 cooked up this little number:Sean printed this out poster size, and had it dry-mounted, and got a whole bunch of my Toronto friends to sign it with welcome back messages. Rock! It's the bossest thing ever, and it is now very prominently displayed in my office at work. Thanks, guys. (Note that the closest available approximation of a picture of Tintin in Canada was the cover from Tintin in Tibet. Looking out my window this morning, I'd say that's about accurate, yeti and all.)
The only fly in this soup of Tintinian thoughtfulness is that the last few months have been so hectic, I haven't actually seen a whole lot more of the Toronto crowd lately than I did before I came back. So some days, all the hopeful start-of-summer sentiments scrawled on the poster like "it'll be so great to have you back" and "it hasn't been the same without you" bring me down a little. Ah, well. There's a New Year's Resolution for me: See more of my friends. Make the drive into the city. Get them to schlep out here. Because I'm sure the baby's arrival won't interfere with that at all.
* *
Now, if I'm talking about a keen, creative homecoming present from several months ago, I must also mention a hella keen, creative going away present from even more months ago.
The high point of my gaming career in Boston, or one of them anyway, was undoubtedly Unknown USA, our big cross-country occult conspiracy chicken-fried road movie. And if you followed Unknown USA, you'll remember that Harry Smith's uncanny record collection, the Anthology of American Folk Music, played a significant role. I tried to explain the mysterious lure of the Anthology in this LiveJournal way back in February 2003. Well, what do you know, but before I left Boston the Ephemeral Circus chipped in and bought me the real-life Anthology. And not only that, they (specifically
peaseblossom and head58) also wrote and recorded the Anthology's one secret missing song around which considerable occult fooferah in our game transpired. HOW COOL IS THAT? Damn right.In that post from 2003, I predicted that "the real-life Anthology might not be quite as unearthly as the one I imagine in our game world." But you know what? It actually is. It is a profoundly bizarre and wonderful collection of music, and even though I've pored over the lunatic liner notes and listened repeatedly, I haven't begun to feel like I've hit the bottom of its spooky strangeness. Anyway, I know I said it back then, but thanks again, guys, for everything. I miss you all heaps and heaps.
(The one thing I haven't done is loaded the Anthology onto my iPod. I just don't know if my head could handle the retro-futurist anachronism of listening to the Jilson Settlers through little white "mug-me" ear buds.)
* *
While I'm rehashing Unknown USA glory days, two recent posts by
calamityjon, of all people, struck celestial monochords of UUSA synchronicity: - I can't find the link, but Jon recently listed the various ways Dorothy got to Oz in all the Oz books. The last one was "got lost helping a hobo." ("Man, Frank Baum wasn't even trying by then.") Hee.
- In Calamity Jon's deconstruction of the lyrics to "Big Rock Candy Mountain" the other day, someone mentioned a line that originally went, "where they hung the Turk, who invented work." Where they hung the Turk? The Turk? Man, do I have to draw you a picture?
OK, I know, I know. I'll probably be cursed to notice this stuff (and try vainly to make other people care) until the end of my days.
* *
And speaking of old LJ posts, I am positive it has not escaped your attention that I have gone back and painstakingly updated the URLs for all the images in my LiveJournal that used to be on my Harvard account. (That's just the kind of procrastinating you do when you don't feel like grading papers.) Now your enjoyment of old Charnel Gods teasers and Starchildren summaries need no longer be ruined by broken image links. I haven't gone into the various wikis (Dungeon Majesty, Starchildren, Unknown USA) and fixed the links there, but if anybody ever felt the need to, the path to all the images is just "www.robmacdougall.org/images/fasarchive" and then whatever the image's original name was. The only picture I couldn't restore, because you can't edit old comments, was this one, of which I remain unaccountably proud:
* *
One last thing I've been meaning to post about for ages is my brother J's adventures in China. I have noticed that a foolproof way to get people to ignore my LJ posts is to talk about my family, but bear with me: there's some crazy pictures in this one and I want to consult the expertise of the China Hands on this list.
My brother Jamie and his girlfriend Miranda have been in China since September, teaching English at a kindergarten and a business school in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. I know I have a couple of China experts on my Friends List, and I've meant for ages to quiz you for any general advice I could pass on to J and M about getting by there, about ways to deal with culture shock, about things to avoid, about things to definitely do. But as it happens, they seem to be doing very well, liking their jobs and the city and taking everything in stride without any sage advice from me.
The kindergarten kids apparently love them. Here they are swarming Miranda. (This picture vaguely reminds me of the International Communist Conspiracy from Monty Python's And Now For Something Completely Different.)
I've mentioned to some of you that, in the time honored tradition of Western colonialists, the school they're teaching at gives its students English names. But Jamie & Miranda let their students pick their own English names, so they have a class of little kids called things like "Superman", "Snow White", "Iguana", "Toy", and the like. J&M have nicknames too: the kids call them "Sun" and "Moon" (I'm not sure which is which), and their adult students at the business school have dubbed them "Phoenix and Dragon." Which sounds very impressive, but apparently it's just a euphemism for "chicken and snake," a local dish.
I don't get a whole lot of news updates from J, but he does post entertaining photos of his travels from time to time. And here is the photo that has me stumped. (Click on it to see a bigger version.)
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, as the kids say. What is going on here? J's caption says, simply, "Kindergarten Weapons Training." Is this the People's Revolutionary Army, Pokemon-division? This is both cute and freaky. I invite your insight and speculation.
The thing is, I sort of always knew my brother would grow up to train an army of killer Asian 4-year-olds.
* *
Well, that's all the random out of date stuff I can think of at the moment. And what do you know, maybe it's not so random after all. Because if there is an unconscious organizing theme here, it seems to be "people I miss who are (more or less) far away." So, to all my friends and family, and everyone reading this, wherever you are, compliments of the season, Happy St. Amnesty Day, Kwazee Kwanzaa, and all the rest. Wish you were here.
'Nuff said!
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-22 04:21 pm (UTC)(Perhaps I will rise to the challenge of recording my own version - it depends how much better than me
Ironically, that last line, reading "I miss the Lexicon. I miss Roleplaying.", is still just as true now as it was then.
I hear that.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-22 05:38 pm (UTC)