Gwen L

Last year(ish) I read an article about an upcoming video game. It sounded awesome, but I haven't heard anything about it since. Partly this is because I can't remember what it was called, so I can't look it up.

The premise (at least so far as I remember) is that you work in this special deep-sea laboratory with a bunch of other people. Then these abyssal monsters come up and start wrecking the laboratory, and everyone has to rush to find ways to escape. You can either choose to be selfish and do whatever you can to escape, or to try to help other people escape--possibly getting trapped yourself in the process. It seemed fairly open-ended, and apparently a lot of detail had been spent on making things realistically destructable.

It sounded very intriguing and the artwork featuring one of the deep sea monsters looked really cool. But I have no idea what it was called and have been unable to find anything about it. Does anyone know what I'm referring to? It was definitely not Bioshock, which is what some of my friends suggested. I wish I could find it again!

Either a legend or a folk tale, from some part of Europe. I know the basic gyst of the plot, just not the details. It's about a prince, I believe, who is out hunting. He finds a deer but also encounters death, and they make a wager as to who can kill the deer first. I'm not sure what the prince's name is or what the repercussions are.

It really has me stumped. I've tried searching for it but come up with nothing relevant. Does it ring any bells?

I was reading about maggots and something odd occurred to me. You know in Lord of the Rings... or at least some versions... they talk about the orcs having/eating food like "maggoty bread". I know that many people have taken that phrase literally (in fanfiction especially) but it made me think. I've only heard of maggots liking animal matter or similar protein-type foods, like meat, or cheese, or dog poop. If you see bugs in a grain-based food like bread, it's generally some kind of moth caterpillar, or maybe beetle larvae, like mealworms. But are there any kinds of real, honest to goodness maggots (as in fly larvae) that will eat bread?

There was this neat little Lovecraftian steampunk kind of animation, possibly created for a film festival, class, contest or some such. The backdrop was primarily yellowish, and the characters were generally black silhouettes with some details.

I think the name was something like "The Mysterious Journey of Professor (or Doctor? or Arthur? or Moriarty?)"...

It was about this young man who was a navigator for flying ships. He starts off talking about how dangerous it is that a slight miscalculation can end up costing lives. He has a girlfriend (fiancee?) too. There's a plague going around and she seems to have caught it. (The plague is creepy, represented by reddish or orange pulsating blobs on the black silhouette persons). He worries about her, but he has been hired to navigate for a ship carrying an eccentric doctor who is trying to find a cure for the plague.

They come across a fishing ship which is abandoned, find a bunch of dead fish and human skeletons in the freezer, and extrapolate its course into uncharted territory. They discover a floating island inhabited by some kind of... viny shoggoth-like creature. It's freakish, but they discover that it can cure the plague, and resolve to take it back with them. Except it requires flesh to survive. There ends up being a scuffle between the navigator and the doctor (who is killing the crew to feed the thing) and the navigator ends up being the only person left alive on the ship. The story ends as a letter to his girlfriend, explaining that he's going to sacrifice himself by feeding the creature his own blood so that it will survive the return trip to the city, where it can be used to cure her and the rest of the populace.

Please tell me somebody knows what I'm talking about. It was such a neat video.

I've seen this before, I'm just not aware of what the right term is. Sometimes when people trick out their cars they'll install these little LED-type lights in the car, like to form light-up patterns on the doors or hood or whatever. Anyone who's seen it will probably know just what I'm talking about, but I don't know much about automobile terminology so I'm having a little trouble looking it up. What is the actual term for this kind of decoration? What are the lights called? Any help would be much appreciated!

A while back I downloaded a free trial of a program called Beatcraft. It was excellent. Unfortunately the trial has long since expired, and the full program costs far more than I can afford.

I've seen other people ask the same question in the past, but most were looking for programs that work on Mac. Which gives me hope that what I want exists--at least for some operating systems.

Is there anything else out there that is very cheap (or, preferably, free) that does basically the same thing (composing music from scratch), but will work for Windows?

I'm studying the difference in wattage between the human brain and various common electrical devices, such as laptops and cell phones. I already have ranges for the other devices, but finding the information I need about cell phones is proving difficult. I'm not trying to cheat a test or anything, I'm just very curious as to how these manmade appliances measure up to the brain in terms of wattage.

You know how it is. You're doing something--could be anything--and somebody comes along and starts criticizing you. You aren't doing it right, the way you do it is stupid, blah blah blah. Yet if you try to speak up for yourself, they take an (obviously fake) defensive stance. They're SO sorry, they had absolutely no intention of making you angry, it's not like they could possibly know anything seeing how they've only been doing it since they were two years old... et cetera.

Is there a specific term for this kind of behavior, this "false defensive" crap?

People say I'm "really picky" about what I eat.

Now I don't really consider it a bad thing, because for one thing it keeps me from eating junk like candy--even as a little kid I could only eat about half of a cookie in one sitting. I don't think I ever ate more than half a slice of cake at any of my birthday parties. And I really love eating vegetables. So whether I'm picky or it's something else, it's doing me some good.

But it is true that I don't like certain things, like mayonnaise, or sour cream, or eggs, or ginger. But I don't think that it's really a fair assessment to say I'm just being picky. I didn't just wake up one day and think, "Gee, I don't think I feel like eating mayonnaise anymore." No, I won't eat mayonnaise because I can't stand it. Just the smell of it turns my stomach. It's nauseating. Same with sour cream--the texture is so smooth and slimy, and it has so little taste. The second I put some in my mouth my throat clenches up and screams "DON'T EAT THAT IT'S NOT FOOD!!!!!" Or ginger, or even cinnamon--they're so strong I get this weird tingly burning feeling on my taste buds and the roof of my mouth. With cinnamon, I feel like I'm going to start coughing--or throw up, with ginger.

But what is it, really? Can it still be considered "picky" that I'm not eating something because it basically makes me sick to try? How much of it is really my fault? I feel bad when my mom complains about how picky I am, but I don't understand what I'm supposed to do about this!

I'm currently working on a small "for fun" project where I come up with some generalized names that are combinations of Chinese words for different concepts and animals.

I'm looking for someone who is familiar with Chinese and can double-check what I have so far. I just want to make sure the words I'm using mean what they think I mean, and that the combinations don't have any unwanted homophones... don't want to find out somewhere down the line that one of these names sounds like the Chinese word for "fart", or something like that!

Input on the structure would also be appreciated; I've kept the two-word structure ("sand box" as opposed to "sandbox") because I am unsure of how words are conjoined in Chinese, which word would be most likely to come first, etc. --if I could get any input on that, that would be great, but if not that's OK; mostly I'm concerned about the meaning/homophones.

The names I'm looking to get an opinion on are:

He Yong (crane forever)

Kirin Shi (unicorn scholar)

Li Yuen (carp destiny)

Lu Ping (stag evenness)

Shi Qi (lion Qi)

*Any* help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I have just moved to the Hollywood area and am still looking for a job and trying to get situated. The place I am staying at in the meantime does not allow pets, which is proving to be a serious problem for me; I did have a lady tell me she would take my kitty but now that I'm here she isn't responding to my E-mails. I just moved here from Arizona and I don't know anyone else who can help me!!

This cat is like my baby, I've had it for three years and it would break my heart if I had to give it up. I am hoping to find someone who will care for it while I try to find arrangements in which I can have it with me. The cat is about three years old, does not spray, gets along well with nice dogs. It can be quite shy at first, but when it is adjusted to its surroundings it is loving, sweet, and affectionate.

My primary concern is finding reliable people that I can trust to take good care of my kitty. If for some reason it turned out that it wasn't going to work out after the cat had been dropped off, then that person could just give me a call and I would arrive immediately to take the cat. This does not mean that I would keep the cat with me if that were to happen--actually I would be desperately scrambling around trying to find another home--but it is important to me that I know where my kitty is and that it is somewhere safe. I lost my dog because my aunt got tired of dog-sitting for us and dumped her at a shelter, and that's one thing I never want to go through again!

So, does anyone know where I could find nice, reliable people in the Hollywood area who would be willing to provide a home to a sweet, indoor-only kitty?

I plan on moving to California in October or November, but because of the circumstances I will not be able to keep my three cats in the house with me; the place I will be staying at for the time being does not allow pets. I love these cats, they are my "babies" and I am not going to just get rid of them. I am hoping to find someone who will care for them while I look for arrangements in which I will be able to have them with me. Does anyone know where I could find nice, reliable people who would be willing to take in three indoor-only cats for perhaps a year? I intend to pay $60 for the first month the cats are in the house, increasing by $10 each month--so payment for the second month would be $70, for the third would be $80, etc.

About the cats:

One is male (long-hair), the other two female (both short-hair). All are three years old and neutered/spayed. They get along with dogs pretty well--we used to have a German Shepherd and they always wanted to play with her, curl up with her, etc. The male and one of the females can be quite shy at first, but they do warm up eventually. When they are adjusted to their surroundings, all three are loving, sweet, and affectionate.

My primary concern is finding reliable people that I can trust to take good care of my cats. If for some reason it turned out that it wasn't going to work out after the cats had been dropped off, then that person could just give me a call and I would arrive immediately to take the cats.