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Other people that write good

UJ wrote a fantastic response to my “Christ of the Barricades” challenge, and Will wrote a prequel to Beloit, saved here from the LJ feed:

Tarnished as it is, the dirty chrome armour of the Heliocrashers shines as they blast through the wall: Erythrophobia zaps at a guard, but canon says that sonoluminescence doesn’t cause bubble fusion. So she punches him through a wall.

The other ‘crashers are covering her while she sets a charge against the generator’s critical weak point when canon oozes out of a grate and tears Erythrophobia in half. The charge doesn’t detonate because canon says they use fusion to fly, not fight: instead, her top half flies into a duct and her suit’s failing containment does the job just as well.

And then there’s stuff like Sumana’s MC Masala, which… you know about MC Masala, right? And Leonard is getting the kind of rejection letters most of us would kill for, for a story you will (when you get to see it) kill to have come up with.

There’s no unifying characteristic between the amazing writers with whom I associate, no New School or Movement, even though I keep trying to assign one. I guess I’m just going to have to publish all you guys?

Baudrillard would actually get a kick out of this whole thing

The phrase “Christ of the Barricades” popped into my head this evening and won’t leave. I knew I didn’t invent it, but my usual sources for cultural context nearly failed me–Maria hadn’t heard it, nor had Wikipedia, and Google gave me only one result. That result led me to historian Frank Paul Bowman, who wrote a book in French called Le Christ des barricades in 1987. Yes, in French, and no, it doesn’t appear to be available in translation.

Putting the phrase in French and applying it to 1789-1848 (the book’s subtitle) certainly places it in context, but that only makes me want to read more. Unfortunately, I know from painful experience that academic texts with intriguing titles end up being, too often, boring and labored with odd extended rants about Disneyland. Also I don’t know French. So I’ll probably never read Le Christ des barricades.

But that’s what we have participatory media for, I suppose. What does “Christ of the Barricades” mean to you? In 101 words?

My first day working from home (yesterday) went really well! Except I left Brenna unattended too long, and she ate Halo 2.

Today was the first time I tried my new anti-tendonitis workout plan: swimming at the Y! I never had time to do this when I had to commute, but now I can get up at a reasonable time, swim, shower, eat breakfast and still be ready to work by 8:30. I swam 16 lengths. I don’t think that is very many! Then I kind of wanted to throw up for a while. That’s how you know your workout was good.

The big news!

Today is my last day as a systems analyst in Troveris, the software division of Trover Solutions, an insurance subrogation company. I don’t want to try and explain insurance subrogation and you don’t want to hear it, so let’s just say this: insurance subrogation is not a bad or evil job, but it is boring.

Tomorrow, I start my new job as a consulting web developer for iNDELIBLE, a design firm in Manhattan. Unlike with Trover, there’s no point in trying to hide this blog by never linking or mentioning them, as my boss is already aware of it (he saw it during my phone interview as part of my web portfolio). I’ve been moonlighting on projects for them for the last three weeks, and I already enjoy the work more than what I’ve been doing. I’ll continue working from home while consulting; assuming all goes well for the next few months, I’ll be moving to New York in October to work in their offices as a full employee.

iNDELIBLE’s offices are in the same building as Fog Creek, where Sumana works, and it’s entirely due to Sumana’s agency on my behalf that I got this opportunity. I was and am very lucky to have a friend like her in my corner.

Massive Flickr update, actually not that massive, it’s 85 pictures, but those are culled from like a thousand. Includes graduations, weddings, Mayan Gypsy parties, and what I know you’re really here for, which is pictures of the dog.

Talk about loaded

The real basilisk is sometimes called the “Jesus lizard,” but the other basilisk may have been based on the cobra, which has crownlike markings and projectile venom. The enemy of the cobra is, famously, the mongoose; one species of mongoose is the meerkat, which in turn is called the sun angel, and protects villagers from the werewolf devil of the moon.

Mulch, mulch, rumble rumble.

I discovered a few minutes ago that I have not only a big black splinter in the heel of my hand, but a hell of broken nail on that hand’s ring finger. My hand was in no such condition when I went to bed last night. What exactly am I doing in my sleep?

I know I haven’t written anything in here in like ten weeks; I have been saving up the biggest thing for the day when it actually happens. Meanwhile, Maria bought a red car, we ate at the Mayan Gypsy three times in a week, Ian touched down like a spinning stone, and Brenna will never trust us again.