givesushope
It's that glorious time of year when we reunite with loved ones (we neglected all year), stuff our faces to excess, and pass out in front of the TV. Perhaps a recalibration of the thanksometer is in order. A spin-off of the popular GivesMeHope.com site, this community invites you to document moments of kindness, generosity, and pure human love in 350 words or less.

veggieslackers
Despite its mainstream appeal, Thanksgiving is not for everyone. There are those struggling with food disorders, for whom this day causes endless conflict. There are the cash-challenged, who can't afford the gluttony we've grown to expect. There are the lonely, who don't have loved ones nearby. And let's not forget the vegetarians, who decry the animal cruelty. But there's one more group we often overlook: the terminally lazy! This community of lazy vegetarians offers easy recipes for an animal-friendly feast.

fashin
Just in time for holiday shopping season, this fashionista community brings you the world of haute couture in the form of sumptuous photos, video clips, and candid commentary. There's also a sugary sprinkle of mainstream movie discussions and debates on such pressing social issues as manicure styles and celebrity colonics. If you need a break from the daily grind to indulge your girlie side, this is twinkly pink on steroids.

MFF
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Gan & I will be there for the weekend :) I'll be at my table in the Dealer's Room part of the time, feel free to come by and get some art! Rest of the time I'll probably be running around in suit causing problems for others :D Hope to see many familiar faces as well as meet new ones!

New Super Mario Bros. Wii
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Oh my God multiplayer is MADNESS. If some stages are hard in just single player mode, they are BAT$HIT in multi-player. Especially stages that require constant speed-running, where you have to dodge, I dunno, LAVA WAVES and the screen is scrolling and things are blowing up -- if you have one of the group that's a straggler that just won't do. It's madness... madness I say! We had various friends over during the weekend to play, and it always degenerates into laughing, screaming and fitful accusations with a whole lot of arm waving :D I turn into a giant pile of screaming arms when I play that game. Think of a sea urchin, just less cute.

Oh but it hurts sooooooooo goooooooooood. I never played the original DS New Super Mario until very recently, and so this is really the first 2D Mario I've played since... oh wow, Super Mario World. I am so thrilled, and the game is super cute. And challenging. My skills have degenerated in my old age :(

I like having a Yoshi and eating other players who don't >:D ho ho ho

http://ny1.com/9-staten-island-news-content/top_stories/108806/costumed-culprits-caught-on-tape

This isn't the way to promote your new game!!!!!

I can't stop laughing, Luigi's just standing there until Mario's like "Luigi, come-a help-a me!!! He told me our Princess is in another castle."

EDIT@08:16 UTC/GMT. Wow. That was ugly. I expected it to go for 30 minutes and have maybe 1 minute of broken connectivity. Instead it lasted over 4 hours and we had 10 minutes of downtime directly related to the load balancer upgrades and then another 5-10 minutes of downtime when our primary Pingback database server crashed and the secondary couldn't take over; which could have been indirectly caused by the network upgrade missing a self-VIP.

Anyways, we're up, we're working, the load balancers are barely breaking a sweat right now and I need some food and a shot of whiskey. I don't even *like* whiskey!!

Thanks mhwest and dnewhall for helping out!

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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.

Which looks better in your opinion?

No mane....




Or mane....



Answer if you want to.

Have a nice day.

Noa

tashabear, the wife of my friend who has been hospitalized with H1N1 has given me permission to elaborate on the situation. Here is the summary, in her own words:

You can talk about it, Spunky. Maybe his story will get others to pay attention to their health and get vaccinated when it comes available. I can't even express how frightening this experience has been, and believe me, none of you want to go through it.

The quick and dirty: My husband, darkwolfie, got sick a few days after we returned from a long weekend at Disney. I did too, but I just had a lousy cold. He called it, he knew he had H1N1, and he just got progressively worse till he had to go to the hospital. He was admitted to our local hospital on October 28, which was a Wednesday.

By Friday morning, he was having such difficulty breathing that he had to be put under sedation and intubated, and his breathing assisted by a ventilator. He fought the vent the entire time. His blood oxygen levels (aka "O2 sats") were never that great, and he would occasionally spike fevers. They were never able to drop the oxygen level he was breathing below 90% for any decent length of time.

They made the decision to take him from out local hospital to Massachusetts General on Saturday November 7th, and of course, that was a bit of a rigmarole, because the ambulance didn't have the ventilation support that he needed, so he had to be transported via LifeFlight. (I told them that he'd be disappointed to miss a chopper ride -- he's a real aviation buff.) Ten minutes after he arrived at the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) at MGH, they administered paralytics and heavier sedation so he'd stop fighting the vent. In other words, they put him in a drug-induced coma.

Yesterday, they did an echocardiogram (ultrasound imaging of his heart) to make sure that his heart was not damaged due to the edema he's been experiencing and the stress of his illness. They didn't get an ideal picture, as he was not tolerating being turned on his side very well, but they think his heart is doing fine. They also administered nitric oxide to try to dilate his airways and improve his O2 sats, and that worked for a little while, and then... not so much.

At 9:00 this morning, they called me and said that they thought he should be placed on ECMO, and let the machine take over the job of oxygenating his blood, so that his lungs could rest and heal. (That article is sort of a downer; just read it for the technical bits.) They got me right out of bed, and I was there by 10:40. I got to visit with him for about an hour, and then they kicked me out so they could do the procedure. ECMO is often administered to neonates (preemies), so Wolfie's procedure was done by a pediatric surgeon -- I meant to ask him if it was a nice break for him to work on such large blood vessels after working on tiny babies all the time.

He tolerated the procedure well, and was okay when I left. The next 24 hours will be rugged as they get all the settings figured out, but I have faith in his medical team, and all the faith in the world in him, and more gratitude than I can express for all the love and support and prayers and good thoughts that are flowing to us from people who only vaguely know who we are.

I can't be choosy. Disseminate this as widely as you like to get more prayers and more good thoughts for him. He is my whole world, and a good friend to so many, and we just want him well and home.

Please keep praying for them; she updates their journals regularly with information regarding his condition. I really just want to see him get better and come home to her. They are truly wonderful people, and some of the first people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing in this community.

A friend of mine has H1N1 and is currently hospitalized in critical condition. I don't wish to elaborate further as it isn't my place to do so, but to any of you who are the praying type... please, please put in a prayer for him. He's a fantastic person, and one Tough Cookie, as is his wife. They're weathering this best as they can right now and any prayers would be greatly appreciated.

sixwordstories
Whether you're in the mood for a creative challenge or you're short on time or attention span, this semi-addictive community is perfect for those who find flash fiction way long. Once you get the hang of it, you won't be able to stop. The prince turned into a frog. The girl ran home to mother. Tough to write. Easy to read. It's a double threesome of fun.

dailyfoodie
Delicious, ambitious, and occasionally nutritious dishes make for an eclectic, all-you-can-eat feast. Whether you're searching for recipes for your next dinner party or you're jonesing for a late-night brownie fix, your cravings are sure to be well sated. A warm and inclusive community that welcomes all orientations, from carnivores to vegans, from gourmands to junk-food junkies. Guaranteed bias-free, food-positive, and pan-epicurian.

Hey everyone,

( Oh, and in other news....I kicked my Teacher. )

Now...for the convention, Midwest FurFest...if anyone is curious if I'm going to be there. Ask me here, and I'll get back to ya.

Btw, thank you South_Paw1 and Terminotaur for your references. Those did help a lot.

Take care,

Noa

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH





I MUST HAVE IT I MUST I MUST

I would drive that with PRIDE. So much pride. And also give out candy to children in a completely-not-creepy fashion in that awesome costume.

And the Peep-a-thon continues: http://spunkywulf.livejournal.com/162905.html

Of course, I think I'd have to do about 5,000 Peep icons to make enough to get that car, haha oh God.