(no subject)

http://www.fantasistent.com/submissions/

Sails and Sorcery, July 15-January 15

.05/word

They want stuff in the age of exploration and the age of piracy, only with fantasy elements, including mysterious natives.

I think I want to write something from the mysterious natives' point of view. Involving, I think, the Kula ring.

My footprint

The ecological footprint quiz thingy

CATEGORY ACRES
FOOD 3.7
MOBILITY 1.5
SHELTER 1.7
GOODS/SERVICES 2.2
TOTAL FOOTPRINT 9



IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON.

WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON.



IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 2.1 PLANETS.

Well, actually, there are some things missing from the assessment, which makes me think it's significantly off, but the problem is that I think some of the missing things would make me look better and some would make me look worse, and I don't know how that would balance out if they were all in there.

I think it's unreasonable to expect people in less clement climates to eat as much locally grown food year-round as I do: shbouldn't we be working on less resource-gobbling methods of preservation and distribution?

Since my job is driving an old lady around town, my distance driven is worse than it would be otherwise, but I don't spend as much time in the car alone as I would. I'm unable to use the bus for the things I do but I do walk a lot.

There's no metric for buying used things preferentially. There's no metric for heating/cooling except "what city has weather most like yours?" -- I had to pick San Francisco, which is not bad, but I set the thermostat to 62 degrees all winter and never use A/C. We have water conservation habits born of a five-year drought. Et cetera.

tickets!

I may have succeeded in buying plane tickets, although I did not succeed in paying for them. I used AAA. They had some kind of problem with my credit card, which is actually a debit card, and which has been stocked with more money than we need to do the adventure. So I don't know what the problem is: they've promised to call me soon and work out the payment.

I ended up putting the flight to the 17th instead of the 16th (which is what I accidentally wrote here anyway) because the flights on the 16th were basically used up by the time I succeeded in buying tickets. Also, the tickets I finally succeeded in buying are a few dollars less than the last batch I failed to buy.

on another front -- that pirate fantasy story? I'm pretty sure it involves a boat full of Solomon Islanders out on a kula trading voyage encountering the Flying Dutchman, or something like the Flying Dutchman that's pirates, I haven't decided. It's unlikely to be real pirates, because pirates would starve if they hung out in those waters at that time. Anyway, the point is to put the Encounter with the Other on its head, and to let the Other be the white guys. Also, the kula ring is so cool I just can't sit still.