C.J. Cherryh is a very good author. She writes very believable characters, and those in Rusalka are no exception. Each has his own reasons for his actions, and no one completely understands the others. In other words, standard Cherryh. :) I quite enjoyed the book, and the words describing the climax, especially, echoed in my head when I read them.

I’d certainly recommend this one to others for reading.

Just as reference for later perusal:

• In Defense of Fahrner Image Replacement:  nice description of a technique for adding images to a website without the <img> tag and with better underlying content for image-incapable browsers.  Requires CSS.
• css Zen Garden: looks like this has some nice examples of CSS use.  Linked from the above article.
• Web design postcards: Collection of little snippets of tips and such for web design.  Need to go and read through them.

Princess Prince is a very amusing shoujo manga. In the kingdom of Gemstone, the king is father to twins: a princess and a prince. Prince Matthew is every inch the bishounen and all the girls adore him. Princess Lori is actually Prince Lawrence, but has been raised as a girl due to a prophecy made at the twins’ birth.

Princess Lori and another girl have fallen for each other, but she doesn’t know the Princess’s true nature. And Brandon Walsh, a thief sent to the kingdom, has decided that Prince Matthew is really a girl and has fallen for him.

Naturally, many complications develop, and the book is a very entertaining read.

Well, Otakon 2003 is over.  Lots of good stuff there; I suspect most people had a good time.  I managed to see “Otaku no Video” (finally), Mystery Anime Theater 3000, the AMV contest (easily my favorite part of the con), and the T.M. Revolution concert.

Oh, and the dealer’s room.  I picked up Princess Prince, a plush Nyarlathotep, a plush Kuro Neko-sama (that one was a gift), a small pin with Utena on it, and another pin with Ryo-Ohki.

Had fun at the raves, spinning glowsticks.  There were a couple other people there who were quite good.  I talked with them a bit over the course of the evenings, not that I remember their names now, of course.  One showed me an interesting variant on the weave that he called a hyper loop.  Has to be done with shorter strings/chains, as it has a component that’s between the arms, in front of the body.  Is also quite tricky.  Will have to play with it and see if I can duplicate the thing.  I think it might work with fire, too, though certainly with much practice beforehand.

I again enjoyed working the con.  Security (correction: “Special Operations”) was again much work, though the work was generally rewarding.  Got to talk to lots of people, and no severe problems occurred that I had to deal with.

And now it’s back to the real world.  Work today, followed by a trip home (where I haven’t been since before work last Thursday).  With luck, I’ll have time to start grabbing copies of the AMVs I liked before I fall asleep.

What time is it? Well, no one knows for sure

Interesting discussion of different timescales (as produced by differing treatments of leap seconds) and possible consequences for the differences.