Anything from 45 to 75 characters is widely regarded as a satisfactory length of line for a single-column page set in a serifed text face in a text size… But even with generous leading, a line that averages more than 75 or 80 characters is likely to be too long for continuous reading.
— Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style
Urakata: 1.3
The Old Man gave me one last job, promising that when it was done, my Graduation would be nothing to fear. A new life, a fresh start, A Whole New World where I wasn’t stuck in a rut, pun intended. I’d still be me, but I’d be free; out of the game, on my own, no obligations to any Powers. I really, really should have gotten the details up front.
I did the job. I very thoroughly inspired an engineer to build a new kind of bridge that would connect two competing civilizations in a way that blah-blah-blah, seriously, who cares? Dull smart guy needed an ego boost and a major push, and nothing builds ego like banging a hottie who’s way out of his league. Pro tip: if you want to make absolutely sure you’re a guy’s type, give him a quick peek when he’s about 11, then come back and nail his 30-year-old-virgin ass to the floor. Never fails.
Like I said, I was made for this job, literally. Head to toe, inside and out, every curve, every gesture, every little freckle, everything went into making me an irresistible, inspiring temptation. I was looking forward to putting it all to good use, post-Graduation.
The son of a bitch gave me a new body.
Dear Synopsys,
It’s been over twenty years since I left the company, but I don’t recall the marketing people being whiny when repeatedly cold-calling (or in this case, emailing) potential customers.
And seriously, if you’re going to contact the wrong guy at a company, don’t include sentences like this in your pitch:
“Are you open for a discussion to learn our innovated technique? It involves instrumentation…”
Urakata: 1.2
He turned me down.
Fuck me, I can barely say it. In the three hours it took me to pull my new Hero out of that hidden world, he’d spent three years bonding with one of the other girls (Annoyingly Clever Little Sister Division). Worse, he’d also somehow gotten his hands on one of the experimental models, a severely fuckable cat-hybrid thingie the Powers had come up with a while back and dumped when she turned feral.
He chose them when he could have had me, and he’d even had me enough to make an informed decision. He hadn’t even popped them yet and still liked them better.
Even worse, he’d learned shit from them; he knew what we were, more or less, and he knew how to unmake us. I was in mid-taunt when he started Naming me, and I could feel it coming at me like a freight train. Names define you, limit you, change you, and he was really pissed off at me. Have I mentioned I’m a bitch? Yeah, keep that fact handy at all times, it’ll come up a lot.
Anyway, I was actually grateful when someone stopped him from turning me into a mouse, metaphorically speaking, until I looked over and saw a Power. One of the major players had tracked me down and caught me with my hand in the nookie jar.
I. Was. Fucked.
StandardNotes sucks, Joplin sucks less, and Emacs sucks too
Ill-tempered glass
One of my JoyJolt borosilicate glass mugs just exploded in my hands while being hand-washed in warm water. Small glass shards flew at least six feet.
Would not recommend.
Update: reminder that glass is really, really sharp, and you should check for bleeding before you complain on your blog…
3D cheesecake: breaking the rules
I recently ranted on what not to do in glamour photography, inspired by a shoot on Big Boobs Japan (NSFW! Javascript off!) where every single picture was shot at a different angle for no good reason.
What I didn’t say was that you can do all of those things, well or poorly, as long as the result is focused on the girl, and not on the photographer’s ego and/or incompetence. So here are some that walked that fine line, and some that gleefully jumped over.
The tricky bit was actually finding some good line-jumpers, since I usually don’t save those at all (and the last thing I need is to go trolling for more pictures). Most of them are NSFW, because I’m a bit more forgiving when titties are involved…
(and, yes, posting 200+ pics in a set helps me make a tiny dent in the backlog; why, if I did that every day, I’d catch up in only nine months!)
Dear Amazon,
I am in awe of how random and wrong this was:
J: Alexa, play the song “I spent my last ten dollars on birth control and beer”.
A: Here’s Rake and Ramblin’ Man, by Don Williams, on Amazon Music.
J: Alexa, play the song “I spent my last ten dollars” by “Two Nice Girls”.
A: I Spent My Last $10.00 (On Birth Control & Beer), by Two Nice Girls, on Amazon Music.
(to be clear, this was not mis-heard; the voice history in the app shows that every word was clearly understood, and she still ended up with a completely wrong song)
Urakata: 1.1
After three solid days of bump-and-grinding my way through the stasis spell, I had my Hero. To seal the deal, I fed him a story about saving the world from demons and then slid back along his lifeline. I could feel his recent death through our newly-forged connection, so I went back to the night before, fucked him silly to convince him he was the white knight to my dream girl, and then snuck back home to there to steal every bit of hero gear I could get my hands on.
I still don’t know how I missed. I’d never missed before. I could nail a fifty-year-old has-been in a truck-stop men’s room, jump to a sixteenth birthday he’d never forget, and be back in his limo to congratulate him on his amazing string of business successes before he had time to zip up. Sliding up and down a man’s lifeline was as easy for me as, well, you know.
Apparently I was off by three weeks. Even the most satisfied man can figure out that something’s wrong if you give him three weeks to think about it. Worse, when I slid back to our mutual present to pick him up, I couldn’t get through the door.
I was the best in the business, a tough, seasoned pro with hundreds of years of successful “inspirations” under my belt, so I did not hide in a corner and cry my heart out over the unfairness of a universe that kicked me to the curb, held out one last tasty-looking carrot, and then slammed the fucking door in my face.
I dried my eyes and got to work. I needed a Hero, and a mountee always got her man.
