(no subject)
Oct. 13th, 2006 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynJolt Cola's got some new formulas.
I've ordered the blue just to see what it's like. Will let you know when it comes in.
CNBC this morning said that the engine from the plane that crashed into the apartment building on East 72nd landed in the home of the woman who got hurt by one of the balloons at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade back in 1997. That's got to be a bit like being that poor guy who held the world's record for being struck by lightning (seven separate occasions). I just hope they don't make a Saturday Night Live skit out of her or anything.
Hundred mile bike ride coming up on Sunday. I believe I've got $335 in pledges for the race. If any of y'all want to add to that let me know and I"ll repost the link. It's for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Good people.
ETA: Click here to donate via credit card. It leads to a web page that handles online fundraising so I don't have to keep track of everybody's pledges.
Let's see, what else... Oh, yeah.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daniidebrabant gave me a CSI: Arkham hat this week. It is lovely. I am hoping my package from Chaosium arrives soon so I can wear it with my Innsmouth EMS t-shirt ("We've never lost a patient permanently yet!"). Also, I have found that my RPG participation has actually done more for my learning about my native city's history than most of my schoolteachers ever did. Why did no one tell me about the Revolutionary War prison ships in Brooklyn? How come nobody ever gave us the information about Ward's Island when we were in history class? I mean, honestly, it was like bla bla INDIANS bla bla PETER MINUIT bla bla HENRY HUDSON bla bla bla LOOKIT PETER STUYVESANT HAD ONE LEG bla bla HERE COME THE ENGLISH bla bla YAY BIG CITY NOW. In fifth grade one of the teachers handed out coupons for free ice cream from the cafeteria to students who could give the 'official' names of all five boroughs, but I don't think anyone even ever told us that up until relatively recently Brooklyn was its own @*&!)(&*!) city! That, I had to find out from reading The Alienist- but most of the rest of this stuff is coming out of research I've done for Ghostbusters and Call of Cthulhu plottage. Ghost stories are best done when they're linked to the local history, I tend to feel... and I think it's kind of hard to beat those ships anchored out in Wallabout Bay (which some of y'all know these days as the Brooklyn Navy Yards) when it comes to a source of seriously aggro ghosts of the Revolutionary era.
One of these days I"m going to go down to Fort Greene Park and pay my respects. Up until I started working on this plot I had no idea that the Prison Ships Martyrs Monument even existed.
Bloody educational system.
I've ordered the blue just to see what it's like. Will let you know when it comes in.
CNBC this morning said that the engine from the plane that crashed into the apartment building on East 72nd landed in the home of the woman who got hurt by one of the balloons at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade back in 1997. That's got to be a bit like being that poor guy who held the world's record for being struck by lightning (seven separate occasions). I just hope they don't make a Saturday Night Live skit out of her or anything.
Hundred mile bike ride coming up on Sunday. I believe I've got $335 in pledges for the race. If any of y'all want to add to that let me know and I"ll repost the link. It's for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Good people.
ETA: Click here to donate via credit card. It leads to a web page that handles online fundraising so I don't have to keep track of everybody's pledges.
Let's see, what else... Oh, yeah.
daniidebrabant gave me a CSI: Arkham hat this week. It is lovely. I am hoping my package from Chaosium arrives soon so I can wear it with my Innsmouth EMS t-shirt ("We've never lost a patient permanently yet!"). Also, I have found that my RPG participation has actually done more for my learning about my native city's history than most of my schoolteachers ever did. Why did no one tell me about the Revolutionary War prison ships in Brooklyn? How come nobody ever gave us the information about Ward's Island when we were in history class? I mean, honestly, it was like bla bla INDIANS bla bla PETER MINUIT bla bla HENRY HUDSON bla bla bla LOOKIT PETER STUYVESANT HAD ONE LEG bla bla HERE COME THE ENGLISH bla bla YAY BIG CITY NOW. In fifth grade one of the teachers handed out coupons for free ice cream from the cafeteria to students who could give the 'official' names of all five boroughs, but I don't think anyone even ever told us that up until relatively recently Brooklyn was its own @*&!)(&*!) city! That, I had to find out from reading The Alienist- but most of the rest of this stuff is coming out of research I've done for Ghostbusters and Call of Cthulhu plottage. Ghost stories are best done when they're linked to the local history, I tend to feel... and I think it's kind of hard to beat those ships anchored out in Wallabout Bay (which some of y'all know these days as the Brooklyn Navy Yards) when it comes to a source of seriously aggro ghosts of the Revolutionary era.One of these days I"m going to go down to Fort Greene Park and pay my respects. Up until I started working on this plot I had no idea that the Prison Ships Martyrs Monument even existed.
Bloody educational system.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 01:22 pm (UTC)In the excitement of wading through the mounds of crap that make up my daily life I hadn't been paying attention to this, and forgot your ride was upcoming.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 01:24 pm (UTC)What's more, I consider myself a Revolutionary War buff - I probably read at least two new books a year on the period - and I didn't know about the prison ships either. Or rather, I must have learned about them from The Alienist and promptly forgot. I think that to a large degree, New York remains ashamed at having been more Tory than any major city of the time. It seems to have been covered up for over two centuries.
In any case, if you find a good book on the British occupation of Manhattan, I've love to know.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 01:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 01:27 pm (UTC)Please don't throw anything too heavy. Thanks.
Really, though, this is mostly just me being cranky. Rather like the second day of my Asian Medical Systems class in freshling year at Case, when I realised I'd just had more Chinese and Indian history taught to me than I ever got in all my prior years of education and had to run outside and yell "NOBODY EVER TAUGHT ME ANYTHING!!".
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 01:29 pm (UTC)There's a lot of great books out there on New York City history for anyone who is interested, as well as the documentary film by Ric Burns.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 01:52 pm (UTC)Because it doesn't fit neatly into the narrative that says that our noble sense of justice passed smoothly from the British to Us. Anglos making Anglos starve to death in prison hulks? Doesn't fit.
> but I don't think anyone even ever told us that up until relatively recently Brooklyn was its own @*&!)(&*!) city!
So was Williamsburg, for that matter. Bkln eats Wbg, NY eats Bkln.
Email me. You have to visit the shop. I can show you some crazy Revolutionary War Period sea chart of New York Harbor kinda stuff.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 01:57 pm (UTC)I should probably read Redcoat first, though. I mean, I just bought it.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 01:57 pm (UTC)Don't worry, I'm not hustling you. Neither of these maps are things that either you or I could reasonably expect to buy. Think "car."
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 01:58 pm (UTC)Ooo! Ooo!
Date: 2006-10-13 02:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 02:03 pm (UTC)Re: Ooo! Ooo!
Date: 2006-10-13 02:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 02:05 pm (UTC)Also: your icon wins at meta.
Though surely it should say "verbing ur nounz"?
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 02:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 04:03 pm (UTC)A nice piece of German pro-loyalist propaganda.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 06:02 pm (UTC)Plus, every new edition of the New York Times becomes potential adventure material. =)
(Of course, this is now ANOTHER reminder that I need to get off my butt and buy that domain name so I can get my campaign site back up online--recaps, links, etc.)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 10:46 pm (UTC)Why they didn't tell you...
Date: 2006-10-14 07:01 am (UTC)1. They thought you weren't old enough to 'understand' it, or they thought it was 'too sensitive' and would ruin your budding moral character. Examples: George Washington died of a cold he got walking back from his mistress's house. What! George Washington had SEX! With a MISTRESS!!! ...
2. There is just too much bloody material (sometimes 'bloody' is quite literal, see 1. above)and you haven't got enough time to tell everything.Usually someone else makes this decision.
3. The teacher is trying to make the material 'fun' to keep kids' interests, and doesn't want depressing material in the classroom.
4. The myths need to be perpetuated, because you behave according to the dominant memes in the society. Logically and intellectually, you always knew that every war has POWs, and that they have to be kept somewhere, but it isn't a dominant meme of the Revolutionary War (interesting they don't call it a War for Independence), like Washington crossing the Deleware (Caesar crossing the Rubicon)...
and so on. Enjoy what you are finding! The data is there, it's finding motivation to uncover it that is the real task.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-14 07:12 am (UTC)