Below are the most recent 17 friends' journal entries.

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
coyotegoth	6:06p	Lost early Chaplin film discovered in film can bought for $5 on eBay. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
lj_maintenance [ dwell ]	2:00p	Network Maintenance: Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 04:00-06:00 UTC/GMT On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice. Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials. We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait! As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work. (30 Comments |Comment on this)
coyotegoth	3:20p	On the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh day, all was silence, broken only by prayers for peace. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
coyotegoth	3:18p	goodbye, old friend The first year I did the Boston/NY AIDS Ride, in 1995, I rode on behalf of the LGBT Center, where I was working then; a friend lent me a bright pink bicycle, which I nicknamed "The Pink Avenger." It had cassette tires (very difficult to change by the side of the road), but it was light, and fast; I still smile when I remember riding up to a campsite at sunset and hearing someone yell, "The Pink Avenger!" In 1996, I rode another bike: the Green Machine. It was sturdy, but it was an offroad bike, with knobby tires and a heavier frame; I almost never got above 10 mph on it (a quick calculation will show that with a 7 am start time, and 100 miles to ride that day, a maximum speed of 10 mph leaves precious little time for eating, resting, or what have you). Finally, in 1998, Dad had given me his old 10-speed: Big Blue. I'd been riding it off and on since high school: I used to ride back and forth to Canton (11 miles each way); I did my first 50-miler on that bike, and my first overnight. It was a Ross Centaur, a model of bicycle I've never seen since; parts of it were rusty, and worn, but in the 20 years I rode that bicycle, it never had a mechanical problem more serious than a snapped chain. I did the 1998 ride on that bike; when I did the Braking the Cycle ride in 2004, I rode it again. As the years went by, it began to show its age: the brakes, although serviceable, were somewhat mushy; the handlebar tape dangled in strands; the gearshift tended to grind; finally, after one last Coney Island ride, I decided that it was time. I bought a new(er) bike (Blue II), and took Big Blue to the Recycle a Bicycle place on Loisaida. A quick pat of the handlebars, and I was away. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
marrus	1:43p	I need some help with the 2010 Mid-Atlantic Lightsurfing Tour! I’m setting up a touring schedule for mid-January, to wrap around the Sci-Fi Con I’m doing in Williamsburg, VA. Here’s where I’m gonna be. I’d love to find bookstores / bars / venues to do signings along the way: January 7th, drive to Atlanta, mebbe set something up that night. January 8th – drive to Greensboro – I may have a signing already there... January 10th –I have a signing set up in DC. Details to follow! Hey, folks in Baltimore & Richmond! Can you guys think of any places that might like to have me come in the 11th-13th? January 14th-17th - MarsCon in Williamsburg, VA January 18th – Drive the 9ish hours to Atlanta January 19 – Back to New Orleans! January 20 - Mardi Gras. Fall down, go boom, then do more local signings. If you know places that might host me, please help, cuz I don’t know them, and I don’t know the people what run ‘em. So, if you want me to come to your town, sign some books, and have a couple of cocktails with you, please, give the store a call, find out if they’re amenable to doing a signing, and send me their contact info so I can set it up. Please don’t just send me an email saying, “there’s this cool place down the street” – there’s no way I can cold call all these people (who often aren’t in when called, anyway) & chase down leads. 2010 looks like the year that everything changes. New ways of thinking, new ideas to put out into the world, new challenges. I’m a little freaked out & not entirely unterrified, but a good friend recently told me that my fear response seems to be to get very focused, wind myself up, and launch off the cliff. Here’s hoping something out there catches me:) (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
news [ theljstaff ]	1:15p	LiveJournal Major Notes: Spam counter-attack, RSS feeds again, CSI Deadly Intent contest The empire strikes back In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal. RSS feeds again If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience. Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests! c_s_i If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here. Enveloped in postcards Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits. Photos of the week If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too! ( Read more... ) (218 Comments |Comment on this)
coyotegoth	3:27p	Congratulations to Christopher Lee, on the occasion of his being knighted (on Halloween weekend, no less!) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
coyotegoth	2:52p	Via interactiveleaf- Alexander the Great and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
coyotegoth	4:24p	Dead Tauntaun wedding cake; it may be just as well that I'll probably never get married, or I'd be tempted. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
coyotegoth	3:21p	From Elissa Wald, Alexander Chee's description of having written a good story: "Lorrie Moore calls the feeling I felt that day 'the consolations of the mask,' where you make a place that doesn't exist in your own life for the life your life has no room for, the exiles of your memory." (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
coyotegoth	12:22p	Yesterday: a walk through the block where they shot Do the Right Thing- lovely brownstones and autumn leaves; an entirely different mood from the film. Sal's is a vacant lot, but the fire hydrant is still there. Into the city; help people spin the cube while waiting for someone (who was an hour and a half late; understandable, given traffic), and watch Billy Connolly walk by, talking animatedly into a cell phone. (Must catch up with Boondock Saints I & II, and get my RDA of gunplay and the word "feck.")(Anyone out there remember who had the HP icon that said, "Avada Feckin' Kedavra?") Home, to watch all sorts of sinister activities in Return of the Living Dead. Today: listen to the Top Brass album (five jazz trumpeters from the 50s, although no household names; lovely music) while assembling bookshelves and stacking books. Then, into the city, to meet my friend Sam for dinner. How's your weekend looking, flist? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
marrus	11:30a	For my musician friends who hate to fly... ...cuz of just this. Brilliant. Don't screw with musicians. Well, at least the talented, focused ones:) And a follow-up, which is so close to almost as good that it makes no nevermind: (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 30th, 2009
lj_maintenance [ dwell ]	5:17p	Network Maintenance - Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 04:00-05:00 GMT/UTC EDIT: If you're reading this, our maintenance is OVER! The problem was not found on our equipment, which means we'll have to work with our ISP to fix this small problem -- which also means another maintenance window in the future -- but at least we have eliminated our side. Thank you everyone, and a special shout out to rekoil for giving me a great suggestion AND also the opportunity to feel like I've just called in to a local radio station. Have a great day, night or afternoon wherever you may be. --- Hi everyone, sorry for the late notice but I'm going to have to do some testing on 1 of our 4 internet circuits TONIGHT; Friday night or Saturday morning depending on which time zone you're in. Most of us shouldn't notice any impact, though there may be some slowness or lag when I switch traffic on to our other ISP circuits and then another hit when I stop the tests. If a page won't load or times out, try hitting refresh 1 or 2 times and it should load then. If it doesn't work at all... trust me, I'll be typing really really really fast to try to undo whatever I just did. Hopefully you'll have some Halloween candy (if you're in the USA and celebrate that kind of thing) nearby to take away the bitterness of a small site outage. :( Here's the handy-dandy Website That I Always Use to get a feel for when the maintenance will start in your area. Our site traffic historically dips on Friday afternoons until Saturday morning which is why we tend to pick this time for maintenance work. ( tech details ) status.livejournal.org will, of course be updated before and after the maintenance window. Or else marta will get mad at me. :D bt (52 Comments |Comment on this)
coyotegoth	2:08p	unbelievable Lafayette French Pastry are a bakery in the West village in New York City; they’re located at 26 Greenwich Ave, off of west 10th street, between 6th and 7th avenues. They were the subject of online notoriety when they made what they called “drunken negro-head cookies,” on the occasion of President Obama's inauguration. I rent DVDs at a store nearby; I make it a point when walking by their storefront to look at the window display, and make sure they haven’t offered any other such “treats.” ( This is what they had in their window display this afternoon. ) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
marrus	11:01a	Pulled in so many directions that I can barely keep a thought in my head: In no particular order: My booth at LARF needs a floor. A finished ceiling. Walls moved. A back end. In a week. Galleries: Several contacted me just before I went on the road. Had to tell them all to hold til I got back. I’m back. Argh. Book signings: I wanna do lots of ‘em. I’m about a 10th of the way to where I need to be to prove myself to a real, live distributor. Gotta find out who loves me, where I should do ‘em, how to afford the gas to get there. And I thought writing the book was the hard part! Bah. MarsCon: I’m a guest at this in Virgina this coming January 15-17. They would like art. And me to be there. And there’s a kinky little bookstore in DC that wants me to do a signing. And another in Greensboro, NC. And a potential book party dinner in Atlanta. I need to figure out how to roll all this together. I have yet to set up my show schedule for 2010. I mean, I have NOTHING past January. Frolicon, DragonCon, CTRF, FLARF, maybe? Dave Stickney’s show? Is Southern CT happening? Who knows!? The website needs a total redesign, I should really do another print run (I used to be an artist, I think), and I still haven’t renewed my tax license for the show that starts in a week. And I’m suddenly going to Anne Rice’s Vampire Ball thingie this evening, and, well, mebbe I should make an appearance for Halloween. I hear it’s kinda fun to do that in New Orleans. The waves keep on rolling over me. I peck at the periphery but I’m so damned overloaded that I just want to hide. Anybody wanna hire me for a dayjob??? Until that happens, please, buy a book or some art - Christmas presents, anyone? (3 Comments |Comment on this)
coyotegoth	12:03a	Apparently, the flu is now considered a pre-exisiting condition. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
news [ theljstaff ]	10:53a	LiveJournal Major Notes: Search super-tweak, postcards, and amazing user content! In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join lj_releases. Super-tweak for Yandex search Some of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here. Postcards from the edge Several years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time. Conquer Writer's Block Here are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day: If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up? I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment. Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me. This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News. I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ... Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation. SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok. I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done. I punch them in the balls. With my mind. I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't... Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly. For more daily questions and user comments, join writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this! Spotlight community of the week We can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern. halloween_fan Photos of the week We received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful! shutter pancetta ilya_gorokhov Curtains Thanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week. (698 Comments |Comment on this)