Nefariously Multifarious

The point of education is to make your head a more interesting place to live in. Tim from LibraryThing

Not just to teach you things you’ll need in “Real Life.”

Metaplace sounds interesting — it’s an open standards system with which you can build your own games.

I like this project not because I think it will turn out great games, but because it fosters creativity in people who previously only ever get to be consumers. Everyone who plays video games has an awesome idea for a video game they’d like to make, but few have the skills to make it real; compare that to bookworms who, if they get an idea for a book, can just sit down and start typing it out.

Certainly, I’d like to make something with Metaplace. …Probably a clone of Final Fantasy Tactics with multiplayer and twice as many job classes, because I am predictable that way.

OKAY SO TO MAKE IT OFFICIAL

I have a job, it’s second shift, it’s full time. It involves phones and is not terribly annoying. That’s all you need to know.

I’ll be busy. And torrenting all my Avatar and House from now on. D: My Dynasty Warriors site will be an orphan for an indefinite period of time.

For the Final Fantasy XI peoples, you will not see me except on days off. Sorry. :\

We got Final Fantasy XI in April of 2004, and we stopped playing in December of 2006. It seemed like a lot longer than 2 years…

And my sister and brother-in-law got engaged around Christmas 2003, found out she was pregnant in late 2004, had the baby and the wedding in 2005.

Writing that down for future reference, while I still remember.

I’ve been meaning to sit down and write something here for a while, if only to announce to the world my boundless love for Avatar: The Last Airbender, but I’m busy looking for a job and accosting the mailman daily, demanding to know if he has any books for me. And fangirlin’, of course.

Also, if my nephew makes me watch that Bob the Builder DVD one more time by god I am going to start beating my head against a wall. Now I know how my parents felt when I insisted upon watching The Amazing Panda Adventure 6 times a day.

Got Harry Potter book 7 at midnight, finished it by 8pm the next day.

Awesome, awesome, extremely awesome — and satisfying, which is the important thing. Intend to write up a review soon.

Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one’s luck. — Iris Murdoch

Remember how I said it sucks to be Sesshoumaru? I can’t believe it, but it sucks even more now. D: QUICK, TO THE SPOILERS CUT!

Read the rest of this entry »

I saw both Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and the Transformers movies yesterday, waking up and going to bed at ungodly hours to do so because I don’t like noisy people. Saw the Harry Potter movie with my mom, and we both loved it (though I had to explain some bits to her; she hasn’t read the books). Saw the Transformers movie with my brother and sister, since we’ve been planning to for months. We’re… pretty much all nerds, my family, yes. Loved the movie, but it needs more giant alien robots beating the shit out of each other and less stupid humans being stupid. Although Sam was well-cast and I liked him.

New Sesshoumaru story arc! No comments thus far. I expect Sesshoumaru to get a serious beatdown since he has no sword right now.

Am very, very excited about the final Harry Potter book.

First of all: my dad’s okay, he had surgery and is home and doing very well, he’ll be back to work on Monday. My mother, who has also been unwell, is also doing better (now that she finally saw a doctor who could diagnose her properly. Idiot doctors, we’ve had more than our fair share of them this month).

With that out of the way, I want to talk about book swapping.

I’ve been a member of PaperbackSwap.com for over a year now. I’ve spent more than a hundred dollars and received more than a hundred books. I’ve had excellent luck finding the books I want (mostly I get fantasy novels), and have always managed to have enough credits to get what I want, without resorting to purchasing credits. When reporting glitches, I’ve received prompt responses. Their book swapping rules seem fair, reasonable, and adequate to prevent fraud by members; I myself have never had trouble in this regard, and out of over 240 books sent and received, only 3 were lost in the mail. They have many good little features, like first-come first-serve waiting lists for books, automatic requesting of books on your wishlist, delivery confirmation with the Post Office, and well-designed printable mail wrappings. All of the members I’ve interacted with have been friendly, helpful, and understanding.

But, of course, there are things I do not like about PaperbackSwap.

It bothers me, a lot, that the owners do not want to cooperate with LibraryThing to let LT show on their website that PBS has books that LT members want to swap. I see no reason for this, unless PBS thinks LT is somehow their “competitor” or wants to be the only book swapping site listed on LT. I like both of these sites, and really wish they could work together. BookMooch, PBS’s primary competitor, already works together with LT, one of many things it has going for it.

PaperbackSwap has also said that they will probably institute membership fees at some point in the future; they are a for-profit business, after all. It’s not a bad idea, if the fee is small, but I’m sure that a massive number of members will migrate to BookMooch, which will reduce PBS’s catalog significantly. I’d probably leave PBS if they did this, not because I don’t think the service is worth paying for but because I’d no longer be able to find the books I want there. On one level, I appreciate PBS for being a fairly clever business venture, but on another level I admire BM’s “free as in beer” attitude and the owner’s pure passion for books and sharing.

And frankly, PaperbackSwap is not a very pretty site to look at. Use of form buttons everywhere as navigation, thick div borders, bad logo, poor use of color — it used to look like a 90s table layout website, and now it looks like a 90s web designer tried to do Web 2.0 and failed. Compare this to BookMooch, which has lovely artwork, soft colors, and an excellent logo. Of course, ugliness aside, when you actually use these sites, PBS is pretty intuitive and easy, while trying to find a book on BM is a pain.

I wish that PaperbackSwap had an API I could use to display the books I want to give away and get here on this blog. BookMooch does.

You’ll notice I mention BookMooch a lot — that’s because I’m considering signing up there, while remaining a member of PaperbackSwap. It looks like I could get rid of some books on BM that nobody on PBS wants, and BM does have a couple books I want. I won’t be switching over completely to BM, since it still has some big issues — it runs very slowly, and it just doesn’t have many of the books I’m interested in.

Here’s a thorough comparison of BookMooch and PaperbackSwap. I agree with the writer on just about every point — in the end, PBS wins because of better selection, ease of use, and protection against fraud, but BM has some excellent features that PBS, if they have any brains at all, would do well to mimic. It really is too bad that the best of both these sites couldn’t be merged together into one gloriously perfect swap site.

So, after all that, the point is, I really like PaperbackSwap and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anybody, but it’s not perfect.

My dad is in the hospital right now. I’m not going to discuss the specifics but the problem is related to hypertension and diabetes. We had to bring him to the emergency room no less than 4 times yesterday before they would finally admit him. He’ll be there for the rest of the week. Surgery might be required. This problem came out of the blue yesterday morning around 3:30am. He was perfectly normal the day before.

He’s in no immediate danger now, just miserable, as one would expect, but Jesus Christ I am so pissed off that we had to bully the hospital into taking him and they’re only now realizing “well gee, I guess it really is as bad as you thought it was”. I am glad my sister is here to help, because frankly, she’s at her best in a crisis. And also she was much better at reasoning with the doctors, since my proposed method of dealing with them involved me stabbing them in the face with my metal tipped umbrella. The idea still makes me gleeful, though I admit it would not have been terribly effective.

This is only the latest and most horrifying event in a six month-long Series of Unfortunate Events, 90% of which remain a mystery to you all because I don’t like talking about it. Discussing these things would be indistinguishable from whining, which I do not like to do, and it would garner me sympathy and pity, both of which burn like acid even when heartfelt.

I’ll be fine. The universe is trying to eat me, but you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.

LibraryThing is looking for a hacker/developer proficient in PHP, MySQL, and Javascript, UI design a plus, who lives within driving distances of Maine and Massachusetts. If I didn’t fail so badly at Javascript, I’d apply right now because I fit in pretty well with that description. Curses. A job in web development working on a website about books sounds like it was made for me, the only thing it’s lacking is free ice cream. Alas. Orz. Fail.

Well, maybe it’s a good thing. Somebody more experienced than I am can apply and do an awesome job. And I’ll at least get the benefit of somebody else’s good work because I use LT. :D

I’ve tried to learn Javascript, but it eludes me. I don’t know why, it’s one of those things that just trips me up and makes me feel dumb. Clearly, this job is a sign I need to stop dinking around and get serious about it. Ajax is so neat, I would love to incorporate it on my oekaki script.

If any of you get it into your heads to apply, mention me so I get the $1000 in books prize for referring you. :D

IN OTHER NEWS playing Flyff to spend more time with Hikage and attending my mother, who is laid up by some hardcore cramp in her leg that’s putting her in a lot of pain.