Tag Archives: food

The Return of the Kitsune

Direlda has returned to his den in an attempt to rescue his ramblings from the clutches of Jabber the Procrastinator.

Little does Direlda know that the MUNDANE EMPIRE has secretly begun construction on a new ironclad routine even more powerful than the first dreaded Class Schedule.

When completed, this ultimate program will spell certain doom for the small band of storytellers struggling to restore insanity to the Library…

What that tells you is true, from a certain point of view. :p

For today does mark the return of this kitsune to his den. :D   It has been a long while, but I have grown in my time wandering.  I am armed now with a cork board, index cards, pushpins, and pens and markers of various colours.  So I should be able to work out a system and hold myself to it.

Today also marks the completion of another orientation session for the Master in Library and Information Science program that I have started.  The Chair of the department said, “You’re all going to be librarians, but you’re not all going to work in a library” and that part of my job is to “make humanity more human.”  I think I’m going to like it here.

This program may also give me the tools needed to finally get my den looking the way I want it to.  Or at least give enough of a kick to the tail to send my scampering to the resources to teach myself how.  The Chair made a spontaneous example for how career paths change of a person who wanted to do storytelling ending up in web design.  And that has got me thinking on how to integrate the two.  Because I do want the appearance of my den to convey a story as much as my ramblings do.  Stories are everywhere.

Speaking of stories, I have a short story being published in the Rainfurrest 2014 convention anthology! Whooo! :D   One of my artist friends, NovaWuff, did an illustration to go along with it that should also be in the anthology.

My story is called Neural Enrichment.  Here is a blurb-in-progress:

After saving for months on his hagwon English teacher’s salary, John finally had enough to afford a cybernetic implant.  He had hoped that his new Rycorp implant would allow him to fully enjoy all that the Korean Technocracy had to offer.  Instead it turned him into an anthropomorphic fox and now bombards his mind with adverts.  John is desperate to shut the world out of his head and is willing to seize any opportunity to do so even if it risks what humanity he has left.

I don’t know the cost of the anthology, but I do know that all proceeds will be going towards a charity of sorts (I think it’s the Clouded Leopard Project, but it could be the Cougar Mountain Zoo).  I also don’t know the content of the other stories aside from all being cyberpunk, but I do know that the anthology I’m in has a content rating of G to PG-13.  Come the evening of September 25 I will be able to give you more information.

That is all the exciting news I have for you today!  But I will be around more now. :)

Count the shadows.

Art Adventure

Yesterday I went on quite the adventure.  I visited two art supply stores, found a museum for Catholic martyrs, saw the outside of Seoul’s World Cup stadium, and romped through several parks.  I’m going to break up this adventure into two parts, with lunch being the dividing line.  So today you’ll get up through lunch and my tomorrow you’ll get to find out what happened after lunch.

My adventure into Seoul started with me failing to get an early start. ^_^;   I wanted to take our video camera with me, but it needed to be charged.  I also wanted to empty out one of my memory cards and charge a spare battery for my DSLR, just in case I took a lot of pictures.  I brushed my tail.  And I had dishes to wash from breakfast.  So it was that I didn’t get out the door until around 9:30 am.

The walk to the subway station was pleasant.  I didn’t even have trouble crossing the street at one particularly busy intersection that is lacking in walk signals.  >.>   Though I did regret forgetting my Irish whistle.  By the time I got on the subway heading north, it was 10 am.

Ever since the 신분당 (Sinbundang, but ‘sin’ is pronounced like ‘shin’) line opened, travel time to certain subway lines and stops decreased.  For instance, I no longer have to take the 1005-1 bus to get to 양재 (Yangjae), which is where Costco is located.  I can also get to Seoul subway line 2 much quicker, which makes travel to and from StarCraft 2 matches that much faster (not that I’ve been to any in a long while…).  The current northern terminus of the Sinbundang line is Gangnam Station.  Yes, it is located in the district that lends its name to the song “Gangnam Style” by Psy.  No, I haven’t seen anyone dancing like that while walking through Gangnam.  Though perhaps that will change if I wander through Gangnam next week… ;)

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Direlda, the Handyfox

So I spent a lot of time this past week working on my den.  It’s not quite finished, but now I’m mainly held up by content that either has disappeared or needs to be created.

Things I’ve done:

  • Rambled! :D   September has seen me stay more active!
  • Organized the Scriptorium enough that a all the areas in it can be accessed. Two are basically done and the others have some content to them.
  • Modified what I tell you upon reaching the front door of my den (aka homepage text) to reflect changes in the den.
  • Dug up the guidebook to the meadow paths, which will allow you to know what lies down various paths in the meadow (aka outgoing links).  The guidebook, however, requires some coaxing from me because it doesn’t really want to let others read it yet (aka I have to write the content).
  • Added a means for you to share certain areas of my den elsewhere in the vast internet.  Pay attention to the tail end of my rambling to see!
  • Created a kit theme for my decorating needs (aka child theme), which means changes I make won’t disappear following updates to the parent theme.
  • Learned a little more about PHP and spent a lot of time with the Codex of WordPress.
  • Played around more with Akismet to help me with spam (I can’t eat all that I’ve gotten).  My inbox of comments is now manageable. Which means if you comment, I’ll be able to get around to it better! :)
  • Harnessed the power of Google’s analysts for understanding where everyone who visits my den hails from.
  • And in case you weren’t aware of a previous month’s fix: Adjusted what you see when you get lost.  As the 404 did when they wandered in error. Just try going to a part of my den that doesn’t exist to see it (so replace a page name that does exist with one that doesn’t).

As you can see, I had quite the productive week. :creative:

Things on my to-do list:

  • Get the meadow guidebook to be more responsive!  Just because it isn’t used to other people, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t let you see what’s in it.
  • Find, digitize, and present you with some of my doodles and/or drawings for the illumination desk.
  • Finish editing a bit of background on the Fox Dreams universe to put as the first piece on the reading desk.
  • Decide on how I want to present my library of books to you for the shelves.
  • Keep rambling on a regular basis. :D
  • Work on my writing and exploring so that I have new things to share!
  • This is a more long-term goal: decide how I want to go about setting up the writing desk.  Eventually I want to be able to give people the opportunity to submit pieces of writing (sort of like fan art pages on webcomics).  This might not happen until I have more of my own stories available.  Or I may have some sort of contest and use the writing desk as the place to submit contest entries (though I’d have to figure out what sort of contest and what sort of prizes…).   I think suggestions on this one would be most beneficial.

And on other fronts, I’ve been doing a lot more cooking.  So I’ll have to share with you something delicious (and spicy :D ) that I made.  But I’ll save that for later this week, after I get my wife’s opinion on it!

Blessings and peace!
~Direlda

A Winter Adventure Part 2: The Kingdom of Wonder

(In case you missed it, here is Part 1.)

I left off rambling about how I had been too warm upon landing in Cambodia.  You see, it was 0° C or below in Korea when we left and 28° C in Cambodia.  I had removed my scarf, hat, windbreaker, gloves, and sweater, but I was still wearing my long underwear… Now I’m not one for warm climates (what with all my fur and all…), but it seemed like it would be pleasant enough once I had gotten a chance to dress more appropriately.

We had to get an entry visa, and this is where the adventure started getting interesting.  All of the passengers from the flight came down the steps en masse to the small visa processing area.  It was chaos.  First you had to survive a queue to deliver your passport and completed forms to one person.  This worker then took these into a room for processing.  While you waited you moved from the queue into what looked like a queue, but which was actually a blob. :lol:   You waited in the blob until another person behind the counter called your name. You then fought your way to him with your payment for the visa and received your passport with its newly issued visa from the Kingdom of Cambodia.  I’m starting to think that questgivers must have their own branch of bureaucracy, for they often ask you to take a letter, eye drops, key, tome, etc from them to point q and then do a bit of waiting before you can come back and receive whatever it is you were trying to get from them.  >.>

In any case, I got my somewhat psychedelic visa for my stay in Cambodia and it was then that I realized that I was in an actual kingdom.  I was still bubbling over that fact (it isn’t everyday you find yourself in one of those) when Eruanna (remember, that’s a name of my wife) and I met one of her friends from high school.  We would be staying at her family’s house for a couple nights before heading off to Angkor Wat! :D   I was really excited about seeing Angkor Wat.  :D

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