An interesting meme

[sraun]

Go browse through my list of interests and pick one that either 1) you know nothing about but sounds intriguing, or 2) you know something about but can't fathom why yours truly would be interested in it, and request an explanation. Verily, I will provide. Additionally, you can ask me about a community I'm subscribed to, if you'd rather.

Seen in autographedcat and rmjwell

Comments

[michaellee.livejournal.com]

austin lounge lizards?

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

A really great Austin, TX based music group that does folky parodies. Website (http://www.austinlizards.com/) should give you more practical details, but I'll just list some song titles and such to give you a clue:
"Hey Little Minivan" - Beach Boys style car song about being a parent
"Jesus Loves Me (But He Can't Stand You)" - Country/Gospel song about how you're a sinner and I'm a saint
"Teenage Immigrent Welfare Mothers on Drugs" - who to blame for everything...
etc.

I was going to ask Scott what album the song was on, but checking their discography immedietely tells me it's "Strange Noises in the Dark". Personally, I think their best title is "Never an Adult Moment", closely followed by "Creatures from the Black Saloon".

[sraun]

Um, I'm confused? None of those titles are on "Strange Noises in the Dark".

(Hint: I just got SNitD - oh, my, what an initialization! - it was in the CD player when I made the post.)

Other favorites of mine include "Rasputin's HMO" - a song about the Death of Rasputin and the state of modern health care, "On the Other Side" - a wonderful four-part hymn about what we'll find waiting for us after death, and "Old Blevins" - about a guy who has a fight with his wife and goes to the bar to drown his sorrows.

From having heard them live (and now have copies on SNitD), "Susie Rosen's Nose" - what did happen to that nice Jewish girls nose?, and "When I'm Cleanin' Windows" - about the perfect job for a peeping tom.

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

I was trying to think of song titles of theirs in general that gave a good portrait of the Lizards. I didn't even know about SNitD until I just looked it up.

Is it "On the Other Side" or "On the Other Shore"? I recall "we'll find National Geographics from 1974"... I suppose they could have just changed a few words easily enough.

[sraun]

Having seen your comment - I'm pretty sure it's "On the Other Shore". Just a sec...

According to the discography at their web site, it is Shore, and it's from the CD Employee of the Month.

And I see that there's a DVD of their 20th Anniversary Concert available! OK, I may have to get this one -

It is a 6-camera shoot of our 20th Anniversary show at Antone's interspersed with some interviews of us. Directed by Austin filmmaker Steve Mims, it falls somewhere in the range of "Spinal Tap" and "A Mighty Wind" but with less plot and, of course, our music. The concert was recorded multi-track direct to hard drive by our oft-conspirator, engineer Larry Seyer. Larry and Conrad then remixed it and it's the best quality live recording we've ever caught. The audience participation was Quite Spirited, too.

[sraun]

See my reply to kd5mdk just down-thread.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Star sapphires?

[sraun]

One of my two favorite gem stones, the other being opals.

In general, I don't like clear gems. I like the various gems that do something when you look at them from different angles.

For opals, check out http://www.billplattes.com - sometime, Irene and I are going to get a pair of custom opal rings from him.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

korval?

[sraun]

Clan Korval, the home family of many of the characters in Sharon Lee & Steve Miller's Liaden Universe stories. Six of my interests are variations on that theme - check out http://www.korval.com

[gramina.livejournal.com]

M.A.R. Barker? (looks like an author; the other authors you list (and I recognize) I like, so.... ?)

[sraun]

He's the inventor of Tekumel, a gaming world, and has ... four? published novels set there. The first is Man of Gold, the second is Flamesong, I've forgotten the titles of the rest. The rest are recent small-press publications, all in trade paperback format. I think the same publisher may have republished the first two? MoG was an OK gaming universe novel - to the best of my knowledge, the only player-character reference was to someone very off-screen.

He's more of interest to me as a game inventor than a novelist.

[azurelunatic]

Why so many permutations on science fiction?

[sraun]

I was browsing through my friends list, checking their interests - any time I found a science-fiction / fantasy variation that I hadn't already listed, I added it. I may not have all the variations that you could find in an exhaustive livejournal interests list, but I'll bet I have most of them!

[azurelunatic]

That makes sense. Are you wishing for a complete set, or is there a more interesting purpose behind the collection?

[sraun]

Complete set? I don't know. I'll keep adding variants as I run across them, but I'm not ambitious enough to go through the master LJ interest listing to see what everyone is using.

I'm trying to use the common variants among my friends, on the theory that the people I'm interested in are likely to use the same variants.

Am I making any sense at all here?

[azurelunatic]

*nods* Finding the people you want to know via common interests.