zorkfox: The Seven Interests of ZorkFox

Pursuant to this post (sorry, friend-locked; the link is for my own future information) by , in which I asked to be tagged for this meme: "Comment on this post and I will pick seven of your interests. You then explain them in your journal and re-post", I hereby provide the following illumination.

Amethystium: The nom de plume of Øystein Ramfjord, a musician from Norway. His music is quiet, mystical, and relaxing, with understated percussion, the occasional sound or voice loop (never intrusive), and a lot of synthesizer and MIDI work. It is easy to use as go-to-sleep music. My favorite song is "Ethereal" from Odonata. (I note the version on the Web site is slightly different than the one I have on CD, but I understand it was remixed when the CD was released to the general public instead of from Mp3.com.) You can listen to it (as of this writing) using the music player on the official Web site: www.amethystium.com. I highly recommend it. Conifur Northwest: This is a furry convention I helped to start back in 1998. I was just a volunteer ("gofur") the first year, but was left in charge of convention operations while the redoubtable went to a panel, and became the head of security for three years after that. I turned that job over to in order to work with in the art show, which gave me greater opportunity to talk with awesome artists like Chad Krueger, , , , and many others. The convention is deceased now, but that's a story for an entire post and I won't tell it here. [The] Dying Earth: My first introduction to my Eternal Lord and Master, Jack Vance. I was joining the Science Fiction Book Club, paging through their catalog of free books, and came across an omnibus edition called The Compleat Dying Earth, which was billed as being a collection of hard-to-find stories by a master of the science-fiction genre. Jack Vance doesn't really write science-fiction, of course, but I saw that the cover art was by none other than Brom and that was enough to tip the scales. I got the book. I read it. Jack Vance became my favorite author. I now own most of his books in one form or another. I have contributed to the sixth volume of The Excellent Prismatic Spray (copy editing, creature stats, humorous footnotes, NPC quotes, and taglines on "The Laughing Magician Part III" by Steve Dempsey ...though neglected to put my name on the credit page) and to The Compendium of Universal Knowledge (copy editing and fact-checking) for The Dying Earth Roleplaying Game. My contributor's copy should be in the mail soon. Mistmantle: A fictional island created by M.I. McAllister for her trilogy of novels, Urchin of the Riding Stars, Urchin and the Heartstone, and The Heir of Mistmantle. I was introduced to Mistmantle when I bought the first book on CD at the local Barnes & Noble. It was performed by Andrew Sachs, who is right behind Jim Dale and tied for second place with Johnathan Davis as my favorite audio book reader. I liked it so much that I started it over again from the beginning when I finished. If you are at all familiar with the tales from Redwall by Brian Jacques, the setting will not be unfamiliar to you. What will be unfamiliar is that not every book is exactly the same as every other book. You cannot tell who is evil simply by knowing their species (in Redwall, any mustelid, vulpine, or rat is guaranteed to be irredeemably evil), creatures actually use their natural abilities, and creatures actually concern themselves with things a creature of their type would worry over: they are not just humans with fur. I have been, with extraordinary patience, waiting for Listening Library to release the other two books on CD. I'm starting to think they won't do it. pettifoggery: pet·ti·fog·ger, definition 2: one given to quibbling over trifles (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary). I enjoy copy editing (which could, at times, be construed as arguing over trifles). I enjoy Jack Vance. I learned of the word "pettifoggery" from Jack Vance. Just ask how irritating this kind of thing can be. Every time I walk over to one of his maps, he gets upset because he knows I'll find something wrong. :D text adventures:

West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

>

If you have never played a text adventure game, which is all we had before computers could do fancy graphics like on The Oregon Trail or The Isle of Mem or Gertrude's Secrets, you should take yourself, right now, to the 404 error page at thc.net, where you can play the game Zork I for free. It's called "interactive fiction" among its aficionados and still has a strong following even now, more than 20 years after it first appeared. There are annual contests for game design. It's like reading a book where you get to make all the decisions. It was the precursor to MU*-style on-line games. Washington: Where I live. Where I was born. I love it here. We have lots of green (on the west side of the Cascade Mountains, anyway), we have lots of fresh air, we have no venomous spiders or snakes (west of the Cascade Mountains, anyway), we have no tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons, and very few (very small) earthquakes, a few dormant volcanoes, the occasional flood, no extremes of temperature, and only a few days of snow (at sea level) every year. It's basically the greatest place on the entire planet.

...you would have read behind the cut. (See, ? I did it just for YOU!)