Author Archives: isikyus

Goal: Write Goals

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Between illness, broken Internet, and various other demands on my time, my focus petered out at the end of the last ROW80 round.

I’d like to say that won’t happen again. But that means something will have to change.

My Internet should be fixed soon, but that may not be enough.

Can I reduce the impact of being sick?

The last few times I’ve been sick like this, it’s taken ages to go away. I suspect this is because I don’t get enough rest. However, setting aside my goals to give myself time to relax doesn’t really work; even if I don’t write, I still stay up late and lose sleep.

For all I know, I’d actually get to sleep sooner (and heal better) if I did keep my writing goals.

What about those other demands on my time?

Some of these are house-related things (e.g. organising repairs). Some are related to things at work. But the majority are social commitments.

When I started ROW80, I basically had one day out a month. I’ve now got fencing every week, and various other social things on three weekends out of four — plus, often, a one-off thing on the fourth.

This probably isn’t that much in an absolute sense, but every extra commitment is one fewer day I can use to work on my own projects (like writing). Combined with being sick (and therefore being behind on everything), this adds up to more pressure than I’m used to.

So, what can I do about this?

Improving my time management would help, but I don’t think that’s going to happen in the short term.

Which means I need to reduce my commitments — either cut down on social situations (and become lonely), cut down on writing (and feel my goal of being a serious writer slip further from my grasp), or cut down on my other hobbies, like programming (I’d like to keep up my skills for what I do at work) and reading.

I’ve considered cutting down on punctuation (especially parentheses), but it’s too great a loss for the time it would save.

If this were an easy choice, I would have made it already.

Pork and Apple Pizza

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According to Stephanie Alexander (in The Cook’s Companion), apples go with both pork and cheese. This got me wondering if you could have them on pizza.

(This recipe seemed to work, but I’ve only tried it just now. Your mileage may vary.)

Ingredients

A bottle of "Ayam" plum sauce. The sauce is a light brown colour.

Plum Sauce

  • 1x 26cm pizza base (or equivalent; I used two smaller ones)
  • 200 grams pork loin
  • 2cm piece fresh ginger
  • pinch nutmeg
  • 1 large apple
  • 1 spring onion
  • 150 grams grated cheese
  • 2 tablespoons plum sauce (I also tried tomato paste, but it’s too salty)

I used a supermarket plum sauce, made in Malaysia. I don’t know if the reddish-purple home-made plum sauce would work or not.

Method

Pre-heat oven to 250 degrees Celsius.

Dice pork into 1cm cubes.

Chop ginger and sauté with nutmeg. Add pork, and fry until meat is cooked through.

While pork is cooking, dice apple and chop onion.

Assemble pizza (spread base with plum sauce, add seasoned meat, apple, and onion, and top with cheese), and bake for 30 minutes.

A pizza. The base is topped with a clear brown sauce, then apples and pieces of white meat, and finally cheese.

The finished pizza.
I cooked this one at too low a temperature, so the cheese hasn’t melted properly.

Self-indulgent poetry. Please Ignore

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They said “Express yourself! With poetry!”
But all I have to say are evil things.
To scream my anger at a righteous world
That knows that I am wrong, and tells me so.

They tell me what I must do, patiently.
And all I hear is vitriol. It stings
As much to know I misinterpret them
As all their actual anger ought to do.

I hear them saying, “Nothing ends your pain,”
When all they really ask are simple steps.
A kind word here — a sharply said “for shame!”
Each as their kindly meant advice directs.

I know you’re not concerned with how I feel.
But silence hurts. It shouldn’t, but it’s real.

In response to Bonekeep

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This sonnet contains minor spoilers for the Pathfinder Society Special Ruins of Bonekeep—Level Two: Maze to the Mind Slave. If you don’t plan to play it, read on:

To face this lethal place, we took up arms;
Descended ancient steps in duty's name;
Cleared evil's lairs — but fell to their false charms
And duty done, went on in quest of fame.
 Continue reading →

A Mary Sue Test and Statistics

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This is about the Universal Mary-Sue Litmus Test.

A lot has already been said about it; some disagree with the whole idea of a test, others support the idea, but debate the choice of specific questions. I’m trying to measure whether it works using statistics.

A histogram of character scores

The number of characters who scored in each range on the test. Each bar is the number of characters I scored who got a particular explanation at the end.

From the characters I’ve scored so far (about 270; see the full list), it looks like it does.

According to the current version of the test, a good character (i.e. not a Mary Sue) should score below 30. On that basis, 195 of the characters I scored are probably OK — as the graph shows, a lot of them scored between 0 and 16, and over half scored less than 21 points.

Of course, this also means 80 of the characters I’ve scored probably are Sues.

So does that mean the test works? Well, that depends…

Continue reading →