Mortaine’s Blog

So, as you may or may not know, depending on if I’ve bitched to you about it in the last 2 weeks, my right foot hurts. It hurts to walk on it, and of course run, but it’s not bruised, swollen, pokey, or otherwise exhibiting any other signs of known trauma. It’s also unresponsive to ice, heat, elevation, compression, or even rest. All of these things work for about 20 minutes, then stop.

I went to yoga last night, in hopes that it would help my foot. Now, understand that about half of our poses in bikram yoga are done standing up, usually on one foot at a time. Given that my right foot is really hard to stand on right now, I was very nervous.

Well, yoga works. That’s all I can say, really. It works. Our second pose in bikram yoga is “awkward pose” which requires balancing on one foot and compressing all the joints everywhere in your body. This follows a spine warmup where you stretch side to side, pushing your hips out past your ankles, like an arch (or a half-moon, hence its name, “half moon pose.”) Half moon pose puts pressure on the right foot as well, at a different angle than I’m used to (by throwing the weight all the way over and past the foot).

So, anyway, extend, compress, release– that’s basically the way things are in yoga poses. And it works. The compression/release on the circulation in my foot was sufficient to promote a cessession of pain. Granted, it hurt again this morning, but not as much as yesterday morning. Hopefully, I can continue to do this until Sunday, and will have worked up a couple of stretches/mini-poses to do during the marathon when my foot starts aching again.

It would be nice to get out of this thing without an actual fracture.

Also, attention Portland and Pacific Northwest LJ Friends!!!
My flight arrives on Friday at 9:50 A.M., and I leave on Tuesday at 6:30 PM. I would love to plan a little meeting with some LJ friends sometime during the weekend. I think Saturday is close to booked with high school buddies and Team in Training friends, and Sunday is the marathon. PLEASE COME TO THE MARATHON and scream, yell, cheer, take pictures, etc. I would love to get pics from the route as well as from the start/finish line, and if you happen to bring a bottle of lemon-lime powerade and throw it at me, you’ll have my thanks forever (Portland switched drinks last week, thereby guaranteeing that no one has trained on their sports drink of choice).

Those of you in Spr0t who were thinking of moseying up there for a spr0t get-together, let me know time & place, and I’ll try to be there!

Ford doesn’t like my car. Or, they don’t like the new (pending) California law to allow my car into the high occupancy vehicle lane without a passenger.

Well, here’s what I have to say to Ford: MAKE YOUR HYBRID CAR FUEL-EFFICIENT, AND YOU, TOO WILL HELP THE ENVIRONMENT ENOUGH TO BE WORTH MY TIME AND MONEY.

Period. I would buy American if American car companies were at all willing to invest in the environment. Since they’re not, I’m not willing to invest in them.

Edit: Fixed link.

I created some new userpics today…..

The one on this post is for Ganymede, the new RPG character.

This is my “Gamer Chic” userpic.

This is my partisan politics userpic– expect it when I’m being partisan (yet another clue of what you’ll find behind the cut link on political posts).

My current favorite; it’s for elections-related non-partisan political posts. It’s basically a reminder to EVERYONE to exercise your franchise whenever you can; there can be no debate if no one will speak. Democracy only works if you participate.

As an election worker I’ve seen blank ballots that were dropped, unmarked, into the box. I love those, because it means some people find voting important enough to go and cast their ballots, even if they are so unimpressed by the candidates that they chose “none of the above.” “None of the above” is a statement, too, even if no one hears it but the election volunteers. But it makes a difference to the workers, at least, who can get pretty demoralized by the end of the night, but who, on seeing such a ballot, think twice about how important their jobs are. So even a “wasted” vote makes a difference to somebody.

Anyone who wants to skip gaming-related entries is always free to do so. I may end up making a separate journal space for Ganymede anyway (or logging her thoughts to her PCGen character sheet).

I joined a gaming group last night. They’re new to me, but they’re already an established group (they’ve played for about a year together). Anyway, here’s the party:
Aleroc: 11th level ranger. Likes beer, ale, women, and hates owlbears. Kind of a stick jock.
Alfred: 11th level monk. Lawful, but in the discipline way, not the “must follow laws” way. Kind of snarky. Actually, REALLY snarky. I like him already. Tate: 11th(?) level cleric/fighter, aka “cuisinart.” She’s a secondary character for one of the players, and a follower.
Shen: 11th level sorcerer. She’s the primary character for same player. She’s kind of the current “party leader” (well, till last night), and very competent.
Ganymede: my 10th level rogue/bard. The new party leader.

So, it’s been a long time since I played a 10th level character for more than a few nights, and a really long time since I started at a higher level than 4th. For me, there are some crucial levels, about 5th-12th, where a character’s personality really develops, and starting at the tail-end of that is hard. I don’t really know Ganymede yet, so I had to make stuff up.

What I decided on was a character who is “starting over” herself. She’d been a rogue for a long time, and recently decided to become more of a leader, someone with more vision than she’d had previously. So, she’s starting over, re-inventing herself, etc. This gives me the perfect excuse for having her continue to develop as a person. Before, she’d been the “one night stand” rogue, someone who would join an adventuring group for an adventure, then leave the party. Someone who, as a result, knows a lot of people and understands a lot about how adventurers work, but who isn’t very close to anyone.

So, anyway, about a year prior to her joining up with the current group, Ganymede had something of a change of heart. She decided to become more of a leader and less of a drifter. She took a few levels in bard and started recruiting her new team.

They adventured together for a while, and became close companions and friends. They were on their way to seek out Ganymede’s personal quest/vendetta, when they were attacked by Yak Folk and all of them except Ganymede were killed. Ganymede saw their bodies destroyed– no chance even of raising or resurrection.

So, that’s the very low place she’s in when the rest of the party gets captured. Ganymede is a serf-prisoner, working for the Yak Men. It’s hard labor, and she gives half of her share of soup every night to one of the sicker serfs, to help the other live. She herself is figuring to die soon anyway, so there’s not much point in spoiling the soup, right? She hasn’t even tried to escape, even though it would be fairly easy for her to do so alone.

And last night, in the course of listening to these newly-arrived heroes plot and plan and try to figure out how to get away, she helped them. In little ways at first, but now she’s pretty well committed. Hey, if the yak men catch and kill her, at least it’ll mean not starving to death.

Monkeys determine fate of the United States. Banana subsidies get instantaneous approval.

Some monkeys are…. what?

Even if the system could be hacked, he said, it could only be done by a person with “unfettered access to the system.” Bear noted that elections are not just the machines, but also the people who work the elections.

[Bear speaks on behalf of Diebold.]

OK, so I work the elections. The volunteers who work them with me meet the following criteria:
Not working during the day.
Willing to be paid $3.75/hour for a 16 hour day, no overtime.
Have no real accountability past the day of the election.

We get a lot of retirees. We get a few unemployed. We get a few like me who do it for their civic conscience (I don’t get called for jury duty, and feel this is my penance). We also get city/county employees, who get paid their regular salaries if they wish to man the polls on election day instead of their usual duties.

But we’re basically talking about people who don’t have any consequences for what happens that day, and don’t get paid enough to stay really honest.

It’s not that I don’t believe that election workers are honest. I do– I’m one of them, and I know we’re honest. BUT I also have the same belief about election workers as I do about TSA baggage handlers– these are not saints. You cannot put a temptation in front of them and expect all of them to ignore it. What’s more, a lot of election workers *are* politically aware and active, and may in fact have their own personal very strong beliefs about how the election should turn out.

I believe that I would not tamper with the election, given access, ability, and a sufficient lack of oversight to get away with it. But am I certain? Would anyone with a sufficient investment in the election results be completely temptation-free, confronted with that kind of opportunity?

I guess my point is: let’s not find out. Seriously; if your system relies on humans being 100% honest and infallible, then it’s inadequate to the task. Certainly, if your system can be hacked by a monkey (staged or otherwise), then it may be time to turn to a more simplified and verifiable process.