I’m writing this in a draft in Gmail because I can’t remember my WordPress password. The reason I can’t remember is I’m not on my normal computer operating system. raisinbottom emailed me today with questions about Ubuntu, and he mentioned Wubi, so I got all hyped up and spent the evening fighting with it. Again. My big problem, as usual, is the wireless stuff. When I mentioned to A what I was working on, she couldn’t believe it - I have installed and uninstalled Ubuntu at least four times now. I have a love/hate relationship with the damn thing. I was unable to get the wireless working, but I’m jacked straight into the network right now, so I can at least write this while in Ubuntu, save the draft, and go into Windows (where my passwords are all saved) and post it!

Anyway, today’s classes were pretty good. I enjoyed the project we did in Deaf Studies, and I was pleased to see another friend of mine is now in the class. A few other people joined too so it is now getting pretty crowded! More people came into my Linguistics class too, and it’s now huge, but we can’t get a bigger room so we are all jammed in tight in a semi-circle. It turns out one of the visiting students is emerge’s sister, I was tickled to find that out! I had some quibbles with some of the teacher’s opinions…I had asked about Gestuno, and then later I asked about Esperanto…and she tried to compare it back to Gestuno. In reality, Gestuno can be more accurately compared to Basic English, because Esperanto behaves very differently from either of those. She wouldn’t hear of it though - did I mention she’s excitable? Oh well.

I just installed Sorenson’s EnVision SL software! I called up VRS and told the interpreter I was just testing, so I know it works. So if anybody wants to call me direct, use my first name at my domain name. I don’t have it set up to use audio, so please make sure you have the video, or we won’t be getting much communicated!

I had promised kgola a little video with a couple of signs, and quarterling seemed interested too (?), so I made this video blog. It also gets into the new Gallaudet president a little bit, and at the end is an introduction of Amanita. :MK:, my sister-in-law, walks by in the background!

I still had Windows Movie Maker open when A started playing with Toadie and a lunchbag, so I took a short video of that, too.

Transcription follows, use rot13 to decode:
Read the rest of this entry »

I saw zille had posted a meme offering to interview her readers, so I signed up to be interviewed! Here are my answers. If you would like me to ask you five questions, feel free to request that in a comment. Of course you’re under no obligation to answer, or to offer to do the same for others.

1. How did you learn all your nifty web-skills?

You know…I’m not even sure! I don’t remember ever taking a single web class, everything has just been self-taught. I’ve used some reference books and sites here and there, but I haven’t done any formal training. And yet I’ve come up with enough to know more or less what I’m doing…I guess it’s just a fun hobby for me, and I’ve picked it up over time.

2. What do you think about when you masturbate?

I can only very rarely masturbate without source material (almost always text-based). When I do, I usually focus on things that have actually happened to me; sometimes I just remember the original occurrence and sometimes I fantasize about the exact same thing happening again.

3. Are you out about all your kinks, or are there some you hold private because you’re afraid they might squick your friends?

I am pretty much out about everything. I’m more concerned with what my parents think than my friends, but there’s very little I keep completely private. As with everything else, I just have a hard time keeping secrets or making things up - what you see is just about what you get!

4. Have you ever done “sex talk” in sign-language?

Hmmm, that could have a couple of different meanings! I’ve never flirted in sign language, that’s for sure. I’ve had to interpret flirtation, in fact just this past weekend I ran into some wordplay flirting and was shocked when I figured out the joke! (”You’ll come later - oh, you’ll CUM later…hey!”) I do have a nice vocabulary from working so much in the leather community - I’m finally no longer fazed when words like “blowjob” come up!

5. What food do you like so much that eating it is almost like sex?

That’s an easy one: peanut butter. I would eat peanut butter straight out of the jar if I could (heck, I used to!). Peter Pan is always reliable because it’s so sugary, but my tip-top absolute favorite is Reese’s. I’ve never bought a jar of it, only had it in cups and the like, but it’s the best peanut butter there is. Mmmmmmmm.

I had been told the evaluations from the class I taught this weekend were good, but unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to read them. Fortunately one of the students posted some thoughts - thanks, Kit!

The first class I attended was the ASL class. I was very impressed with this class, because the presenter didn’t show, and they asked the interpreter to do the class - and out of no where, she managed to pull together a rather sucessful class (in my opinion it was pretty sucessful - especially for having been told that morning she was doing the class). I really enjoyed this class - we learned a couple of kink-related signs, as well as a couple basic signs I already knew. The presenter also talked a bit about the deaf community, and the difference between ASL and signed English. One thing I think is really interesting is how the sign for cochlear implant is the same as for vampire, it’s just behind the ear instead of on the neck (I think that might say something about someone’s opinion of cochlear implants…). Anyway, I enjoyed the class, and despite the presenter not showing up, still managed to get a lot out of it. The one thing that sucked was about half-way through the class, one of the deaf attendees at LLC came into the presentation looking for the interpreter - there was a class he wanted to see, and there wasn’t any other interpreters. Luckily, he was very gracious, and sat down in the class with us and shared some of his experiences with us. It was mildly confusing to have a voice interpreter, but he signed far too fast for me to understand most of what he was signing - I did get a couple words here and there. But he did say this was one example of the hardships he faced - and that kinda sucked.

I finally rediscovered the link for how to get a free BME t-shirt: you review experiences submitted by website users. They’re not looking for heavy copyediting or anything like that, just verification that the submissions are actually about body modification, that they are not written entirely in netspeak, and so forth. And once you have reviewed 500 experiences - the first level at which you earn anything - you get this t-shirt. Needless to say I am reviewing experiences as fast as I can, which unfortunately is limited by how fast they come in!

This is my third video blog entry! Putfile was being screwy, so I looked for alternative hosts and came across ZippyVideos. (If you want to sign up, please let me know so I can give you a referral link. Or don’t, up to you.) Anyway, this is still in WMV format, because for some reason the MPG version I made isn’t uploading. I e-mailed the ZippyVideos people to ask about it; if I can get it uploaded I’ll mention that here. Also, I’ve updated the links to the first two entries to point to the new locations at ZippyVideos. Stuff is public at ZippyVideos, which is a little odd…people I don’t know are watching me already! Anyway, the non-ASL-literate can check below for the English translation. And yes, I know everything is a little blurry, leaving trails…I’ll have to figure that out at sometime other than 1:00 in the morning.

By the way, I also started a community on LiveJournal called signing_blogs, so join that if you’re into this kind of thing.

Added: I’ve moved my video blogs again, this time to YouTube. It is decidedly more Web 2.0 than the other two services, and it gives a 100mb upload limit instead of 20mb. And it already seems to have a lot of deaf users, which is a major plus because it helps develop the signing blog community.
Read the rest of this entry »

My primary client enrolled in a PL/SQL class at Learniing Tree, and I was sent with him. This is a nice change of pace; fortunately we are in the Reston center so it’s not far at all from my house. Learning Tree, for those of you who haven’t heard of it before, is a super-expensive IT training outfit - it’s a few thousand dollars for a week-long class. The perks you get are a varied breakfast (bagels, doughnuts, oatmeal, fruit), free sodas (multiple vending machines that are set to $0.00), an afternoon snack (Tuesdays are the famous cookie day), and various other little bonuses like notepaper, pens, etc - you could walk in empty-handed and still be fully prepared for class.

The subject matter off this particular course is difficult. I have a basic understanding of relational databases, and a very basic understanding of SQL, but the vocabulary is really tough and class format is confusing because the teacher jumps from Powerpoint to a demonstration screen behind my back. Fortunately I have a copy of the study book, which has all the Powerpoint slides, and I even have a table for it rather than having to balance it on my lap. Signs I’ve struggled with so far are “cursor” (we couldn’t come up with a conceptually accurate sign because we don’t know yet what it means, so we are using the sign for the kind of cursor that you manipulate with the mouse), “anonymous” (NO NAME or NO LABEL), “declare” (ESTABLISH), and “variable” (using VARIETY because there wasn’t really an easy single sign).

Hey, it just occurred to me to wonder where my Random House ASL Computer Dictionary is hiding.

My mom sent me a link to this article from my hometown newspaper, which is about the possibility of the school system adopting ASL as a foreign language. Currently there’s only one high school that offers a sign language class, and it’s only given as an elective credit. Here’s what I wrote to the editor, cc’d to the article’s author and the teacher mentioned in the article.
Read the rest of this entry »