Below are the most recent 12 friends' journal entries.

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
lj_maintenance [ dwell ]	2:00p	Network Maintenance: Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 04:00-06:00 UTC/GMT On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice. Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials. We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait! As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work. (30 Comments |Comment on this)
magestry [ rikosis ]	4:37p	Teddy Bears I forgot who ordered the teddy bears from Atreyu and what colors the ribbons were suppose to be help me out. Theres six of you that ordered a teddy bear from him Lex Suki and who else? Please let me know asap what your color was suppose to be and whether you will be at this game or not and your character name to. Thanks P.S. If you didnt order a bear from Atreyu dont ask for one now these things are hand made by me and are thus far an absolute pain in the ass =D (Comment on this)
magestry [ wicketsnatcher ]	10:20a	Eat me. Dinner will be chili. Veggie version will also be vegan safe. (Aside: Vegetarians - beat up your vegan offspring for not allowing me to use delicious butter while sauteing onions.) Bread will be available, as will small sides of sour cream and cheddar cheese. (13 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
magestry [ jaraxles ]	9:13p	Rakesh, pay attention... I found a new way to get that pesky ol' anvil down to the smithy.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhQ4dE_RGnQ (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 6th, 2009
magestry [ commonboy ]	11:34p	Child's Play - New Hampshire Hey everybody! Some of you may remember last year, when Graham Sternberg went about collecting money for the New Hampshire Game-A-Thon charity for Child's Play. Well, Graham is a chump and I am calling dibs on you cats and kittens for donations. For those of you who have no clue what I'm going on about, this page here explains what Child's Play is. Basically, you will be giving me money (by the hour or as a donation) to play board games, card games, and video games for 24 hours straight, up in the good old state of New Hampshire. That money then goes to buy games and toys for sick kids with prolonged hospital stays. So seriously, if you guys can give anything at all (one dollar, five dollars, anything), please consider doing so. Last year, 14 nerds raised over $2100 and no lie, Magestry was one of, if not *the*, biggest contributors. You guys were amazing! If you have any questions or want to sign up, you can either comment here or email me (commonboy AT gmail DOT com). You won't have to pay up until afterward (this shin-dig happens on the 21st), but I will happily take donations beforehand. This is a totally rock-star opportunity for us geeks to do something great for kids who will really appreciate it. Please consider helping out. - Mike Faulk EDIT: Additionally, Magestry will give you guys 1 BP per dollar donated. NPC's can hand out their BP to the player of their choice. That's like...extra giving! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
drazniich	6:40p	Who are we? Who are we. Asked a thousand times on a thousand fields, in a million dying eyes. This I accept, that the simple knowledge of our existence is a terrible revelation. For to them, are we not just a hungry, slavering, ravenous maw, one single extended mandible that swings ever towards the horizon? To them, we are the intruder, the plague, the curse. An ungrateful world that did not have the common decency or dignity to die quietly beneath a great ever turning mill of brass, bronze and bone left this constant cloying reminder that perhaps not all cogs are ever predicted to continue to simply turn onward as intended. That within ever un-oil lamp ridden shadow, every dank or dark passage beneath their beds and every un-plundered cavern lurks some primordial driven instinct of chaos to rise high above the order they try to forge into the air around them. But just a savage predator is easily beaten, flushed from hiding with iron and fire. Had we been merely creatures of light, or of the soil, we would have been killed this way. Driven to dust and dirt long ago, ground within the fumaroles they carved within the hide of the lands beneath their feet. We would have been scattered amongst the winds and stars, as the dreams of simpler, sweeter musics all must go. No. We are not bound together of gossamer and silk, woven of wind and sweet evenings and bright, dew drenched mornings. We are not coiled of clay, nor even grown of vine and soil to rise to the sun. Who are we? We are forged of fear. We are the claws upon the viewing glass, we are the thumping of your children's hearts on a moonless night. We are the chip in the gear that shrieks as it tears the belly from your machine, the steel wire unwinding and terrible in it's wake. We are the breath stolen from your lungs as you flee, the iron soled boot that clears the flesh from your throat when you fall. We are the unknown, the dark, and the candle that never stays lit. We forsook the ways of the vine and mind, and instead took the ways of the bomb, and the gun... We are DEVOURING INCARNATE. WE ARE MANY, A THOUSAND SCORES OF A THOUSAND TO EVERY ONE AND ALL. WE ARE THE DRAGONS AND DEMONS, AND WHEN THE BRUTALITY OF OUR RESOLVE IS SEEN, YOUR SOULS WILL BE JUDGED HOLLOW AND LEFT WANTING IN YOUR PEOPLES OWN BROKEN EYES. WE BRING THE NIGHT TO YOU, THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE REVENGE AND FURY AGAINST THOSE WHO WOULD STRIKE US FROM THIS LAND! BRING YOUR OIL AND YOUR IRON, YOUR AXES AND FIRE! BRING YOUR JUGGERNAUTS, YOUR KNIGHTS, YOUR PRIESTS GODS AND GEARRIGHTS! BRING YOUR HOPES AND YOUR SCHEMES, YOUR MACHINATIONS AND YOUR DREAMS! BRING YOUR GREATEST WAR DOWN UPON US, For even yet, we hunger... Bring the fight and bring it hard, for We Redcaps are the Biggest Dogs in the Yard... - Dragon Iscariot, Sergeant of the Word. ------------------------ "Fear is for the weak, and the wounded." - Dragon Iscariot. "I will gladly burn this city to the ground rather than sneak away from it intact." - Vackt Alrayah, First of the Iron Star. "And my brothers looked over the hill towards tomorrow, and foresaw the rise of all the furnaces of our world, and they gazed upon it to find it good and pure, and they began the Exodus of the Gear." - Brother Aylan Atre of the Gear. "Under the moonlight and star shine, coated in the blood of a foe, in that field before all silent gods and unanswered prayers, we are monsters both man and fiend alike..." - Warmaster Arct'arus Shale, Knight and Protector of the Redcap Tribes. "One jaw, many necks." - Old Redcap proverb pertaining to a Redcap army and how to slay the leader will not stop the many. "For my children will rise up to devour their enemies as a single force, they will be solid of soul and fell of mind, they will attack with the wickedness of loss and the clarity of revenge, they will crush the weak and hurtle the dead. My children will stand with the wrath of saints each, and as one great legion they will unceasingly eradicate those who would try to poison, sicken, sever or slow their people. They will destroy the very stars above and roan below to bloody and break that which stands against them, single of thought and purpose, single of instinct and spirit, and on that day you will learn the true name of Fear itself is simply 'Redcap'." - Father Wyrack, the Lord of Redcaps. "A thousand ways to slake a thirst and a hundred ways to fill a belly, but only a single way to satiate blood lust..." - Old Redcap Proverb pertaining to murder. "Send more soldiers." - General Waylondier, Leader of the 51st Cannon Legion. "Yeah, more soldiers. We're still very, VERY hungry." - Warmaster Arct'arus Shale, in a note pinned to the head of General Waylondier. "He who bites off more than he can chew should learn to bite harder." - Old Redcap Proverb pertaining to being prepared and hubris. "A dog? If I am a dog, and I can move mountains and crush the sky with my bark, imagine how fearsome my bite must be." - Dragon Iscariot. "The Redcap who is hungry fights twice as hard." - Old Redcap Proverb pertaining to motivation. "Never sell your sword arm unless you want it to be the only one raised." - Old Redcap Proverb pertaining to demanding a favor in return too soon. "Two meals tomorrow beats one meal today." - Old Redcap Proverb pertaining to patience. (Comment on this)
news [ theljstaff ]	1:15p	LiveJournal Major Notes: Spam counter-attack, RSS feeds again, CSI Deadly Intent contest The empire strikes back In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal. RSS feeds again If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience. Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests! c_s_i If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here. Enveloped in postcards Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits. Photos of the week If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too! ( Read more... ) (218 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
magestry [ cross_myxheartx ]	10:24p	I got bored of seeing the same entries here (and it' s only been two days since a new one) Soooo.... Who will be there next game?! Eh eh? I will be! Side note: Dear Mark Dey, why does the database hate grammar? Is it possible to be changed in the near future? I HAD TO SUBMIT MY PEL THREE DIFFERENT TIMES, and it became crappier quality each time! I blame you. :) Ohhh two different topics to talk about, discuss! Current Mood: lazy (38 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
magestry [ mark_dey ]	7:38a	Magestic Messenger Vol. 7, Iss. 8 The newest copy of the Magestry Newsletter is available here. Remember that the last game of the year is in less than 2 weeks (November 13-15)! You may commence the extreme bugging of anyone who is not yet on the registration list. -The Magestic Staff (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
drazniich	12:36a	Personal Bets [Or best? Who knows...] I write 3 poems and either post them here, facebook, or another account. If I do not, then I have three that I wrote in College that WILL have to be posted. 1 week. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 30th, 2009
lj_maintenance [ dwell ]	5:17p	Network Maintenance - Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 04:00-05:00 GMT/UTC EDIT: If you're reading this, our maintenance is OVER! The problem was not found on our equipment, which means we'll have to work with our ISP to fix this small problem -- which also means another maintenance window in the future -- but at least we have eliminated our side. Thank you everyone, and a special shout out to rekoil for giving me a great suggestion AND also the opportunity to feel like I've just called in to a local radio station. Have a great day, night or afternoon wherever you may be. --- Hi everyone, sorry for the late notice but I'm going to have to do some testing on 1 of our 4 internet circuits TONIGHT; Friday night or Saturday morning depending on which time zone you're in. Most of us shouldn't notice any impact, though there may be some slowness or lag when I switch traffic on to our other ISP circuits and then another hit when I stop the tests. If a page won't load or times out, try hitting refresh 1 or 2 times and it should load then. If it doesn't work at all... trust me, I'll be typing really really really fast to try to undo whatever I just did. Hopefully you'll have some Halloween candy (if you're in the USA and celebrate that kind of thing) nearby to take away the bitterness of a small site outage. :( Here's the handy-dandy Website That I Always Use to get a feel for when the maintenance will start in your area. Our site traffic historically dips on Friday afternoons until Saturday morning which is why we tend to pick this time for maintenance work. ( tech details ) status.livejournal.org will, of course be updated before and after the maintenance window. Or else marta will get mad at me. :D bt (52 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
news [ theljstaff ]	10:53a	LiveJournal Major Notes: Search super-tweak, postcards, and amazing user content! In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join lj_releases. Super-tweak for Yandex search Some of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here. Postcards from the edge Several years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time. Conquer Writer's Block Here are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day: If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up? I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment. Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me. This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News. I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ... Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation. SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok. I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done. I punch them in the balls. With my mind. I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't... Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly. For more daily questions and user comments, join writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this! Spotlight community of the week We can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern. halloween_fan Photos of the week We received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful! shutter pancetta ilya_gorokhov Curtains Thanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week. (698 Comments |Comment on this)