Dec. 24th, 2005 [Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος]

Did make it to the kitchen, though it took me a while. Drank juice, made eggs & toast; world looks a little less cockeyed but am still a bit wobbly. Taking advice to rest and try to go back to sleep, Christmas to-do list be damned. Hope this is "merely" fibromyalgia/migraine randomness that will let go of me in time to cope with family Christmas stuff, and not the start of something viral that'll lay me out for the weekend.

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"Why don't we all just go live in Alaska where the Sun never comes up? Oh, brilliant idea. You're the first vampire who's ever thought of that one, I'm sure. An idea this wonderful could never have occurred to anyone but you, who've been one of us less than a month! Let me tell you something [...]" -- corivax, 2005-06-22 (Go. Read. Now. I'll wait. Really. Think about it tonight.)

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Bad: I'm not in my lover's arms. I have a migraine. I'm worried about feeling well enough to drive tomorrow. When I turned on the furnace, water leaked from the pipes over the boiler.

Mitigating: The leaks seem slow enough that I can just catch them in a bucket for now, until I figure out how to fix them properly. The way I feel right now is less disconcerting and less generally-ooky than last night, despite being more aware of being in pain and more sensitive to loud noises.

Good: Thanks to a major gift, I have half a tank of oil with which to fuel the furnace (which is why I was able to turn it on at last). The Redskins won this afternoon. And though I have neither as complete nor as clean a solution as I'd like (nor as pretty, but that's just a matter of tinkering), I do have slash-noteheads to indicate strumming patterns in ABC by way of embedded Postscript code handled by abcm2ps.

I still haven't gotten around to learning Postscript (it's been on my to-do list for about a decade), and the documentation for adding custom Postscript ornamemts in abcm2ps suffers from "understandable only if known" syndrome (I'm pretty sure I got that phrasing from

realinterrobang), so there was a lot of guessing what uncommented bits of code meant and modifying them by trial and error. (The one place where I'll forgive uncommented code: when it's machine-generated and only intended as an intermediate product never meant to be read or edited by humans.)

I need to get around to learning Lilypond (on my to-do list for, uh, a couple years now), which does implement strum-noteheads without such a kludge -- and apparently there exist ABC-to-Lilypond conversion tools. Or maybe I'll hack the abcm2ps source to add the syntax I want and submit my changes in case they're considered suitable for the next official release ... I'll have to go peek at the guts of abcm2ps and see how well commented it is.

In case anybody else here has a need for strum marks in ABC, here's how I did it:( sample code )

And if you want to see what the output looks like (the length and angle of the slashes could use tweaking, and if I knew how to make the upper end of the slash join the stem more neatly ... well, it'll do for now):

Mood:: in pain

Music:: "It's Always Something", by Jennifer "Gwenna" Lubell

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I'd planned to post cheery Christmas greetings, links to holiday-related cleverness I've seen recently, and musings on the tone of the whole "War On Christmas" thing. Well, like most of my plans for this week, I'm probably not going to get to most of what I'd planned to write. (Some of it will keep for next year though!)

Tomorrow I shall either be too unwell to leave the house (much like today), or busy with family celebrations (wish me luck!), so in case I haven't time in the morning (and in case nobody else is reading LiveJournal tomorrow), I wanted to get something out tonight anyhow. And I think I've found it in someone else's words, which saves me a lot of editing and worrying about phrasing and such. howardtayler, the author/artist of Schlock Mercenary, wrote the following in his note-from-the-author for today:

[...] There are those, of course, who will take offense at "Merry Christmas" AND "Happy Holidays." [...] as a writer whose global audience almost certainly includes at least a couple of these people, I'm led to ponder what kind of greeting I could offer, what kind of message I could post that would be appropriate, inoffensive, and yet full of meaning.

I think I've found one. Worshippers of Christ will find it timely, and will see it as a reminder of who they are and what they should be about. Those familiar with the Christian message will certainly recognize it, but will find it difficult to argue with. Those unfamiliar with the lore of the season may wonder a bit at the wording, but will have a difficult time arguing with the sentiment.

And so it is that I hope you all enjoy peace on Earth, good will towards men.

I don't think there's a 'permalink' for it yet, but it should be visible on the front page (current day's strip) of the Schlock Mercenary web site for at least the next few days, if you want to read the whole thing.

One more wish: I'll echo madfilkentist, who -- in honour of Newton's birthday -- wrote: "Don't forget Newton's laws of physics when out there in holiday traffic." (And that's why I'm reluctant to hit the Interstates with a migraine.)

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