bluegargantua

Hi,

So last week, I purchased my ticket to GenCon. I leave on Wednesday, August 15th and come back on Sunday.

Early this week, it occurred to me that I could start my vacation earlier and leave from Boston on Friday, August 10th to go out to Nebraska and visit my folks (I was supposed to do this next week, but work and a new house are conspiring). It turns out, there's a pretty cheap multi-city fare that takes me from Boston to Omaha and back to Indianapolis on Wednesday.

Now, here's my question: I could try and change my existing ticket. But they'll slap a fee of $100 bucks on me and all kinds of other crap. Suppose I just bought the multi-city ticket. On Wednesday, I wouldn't be in Boston to take my flight out to Indianapolis. But can I use the return portion on Sunday. In other words, can I skip out on the outbound flight but use the return portion of my ticket rather than canceling the whole thing and starting over? It would be cheaper than trying to alter the existing flight and probably more convenient since I might need to use a different carrier to get to Omaha.

I'm sure in the past no one would care, but with heightened security, they might wonder what happened to me and deny my boarding.

Does anyone in LJ know the answer to this?

later
Tom

Hi,

So I have an upcoming craft project.

It does not involve knitting.

It does involve soiling my lily-white aristocratic hands with the muck of the physical universe.

Here's what I want to do:

I want to take a piece of fabric (here, I'm thinking something sturdy and outdoors-y like canvas) and print a grid pattern on it. Assume I'm making a portable checkerboard (not actually true, but close enough for example's sake). What's an efficient way to do that? Assume that in the Good/Fast/Cheap triad, I pick Good and Fast, but will sacrifice some Good to improve the Cheap.

Go forth, Internet Minons, and bring me answer!

later
Tom

Hey,

American folklore focuses primarily on The Heroic Individual. We've got the lone guy out on the frontier making it safe for civilized society.

But we never really have A Heroic Group. We've got a lot of Hercules and Gilgamesh type stories, but we don't have an Argonautica or Kalevala. Every now and again we get a "Team-Up" episode where Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill get together or Davy Crockett and Mink Fink face off, but we don't really have a well-known story where a whole bunch of larger than life characters get together and go do stuff for awhile.

Can anyone think of some counter-examples?

[EDIT: I'm not counting comic books/TV/Movies/Mass Media. Not that those aren't necessarily valid, just not within the perview of my question. I'm thinking here of oral storytelling. If it's not something you can use freely without the threat of copywright infringement, then it probably isn't what I'm trying to get at.

SIDE NOTE: But considering comic books for a minute, the interesting thing about them is that they've really only got one story -- the origin story. Everyone knows how Superman, Batman, Spiderman, et. al. got their start. And they can usually describe their primary villian, but actual events beyond the creation of the hero become much more muddy. You might remember specific issues, but it almost never translates into a larger consciousness. The common man knows that Spider-man loves Mary Jane but only comic geeks know that before MJ, Spidey let a certain Gwen Stacy fall to her death.]

later
Tom

Hi,

A bit of an odd request today...

Does anyone out there have goat-leggings...in my size?

I ask because there's this party coming up and I'd like to go as a Satyr (especially as I'm given to understand that there will be a number of nymphs there). But this requires the shaggy legs and I don't happen to have anything like that in my closet.

I also need horns, but in my circle of friends that's a much easier request.

later
Tom

Hi,

OK, so when you think thoughts, when you have that internal monologue in your head. Where you "hear it coming from"? If you're like me, you "hear" those thoughts as originating in your head. Like there's a little you in there talking out loud as it mulls over whatever you're thinking about.

Does anyone think of it as any different?

I ask because it occurs to me that maybe the reason why I hear it there is because I know (and have been taught) that my brain, which is in my head, is where I think and that's why I hear the thoughts as being in my head -- because that's where they come from.

Now the intersting thing is that the Ancient Greeks (and probably lots of other cultures) believed that your thinking originated in your heart (the brain simply cooled blood). So I wonder if those people thought of their thoughts as coming from their heart and if they "heard" it coming from there.

It's an interesting experiment to try. Start up your internal monologue but instead of hearing it in your head, hear it in your chest...or your knees...or your thumbs....

Weird
Tom

Hi,

I'm thinking of a book. It's either a novel, or an anthology title. Or it may be that there was a novel that inspired an anthology title edited by the guy who wrote the novel.

It's a fantasy title.

The main theme is that magic dies out/goes away and the wizards et. al. are left to fend for themselves. (in the anthology, it's a whole raft of stories on this theme)

Anyone? Anyone? Beuller? Beuller?

Thanks
Tom

[EDIT: Answer: The Magic Goes Away by Niven]