Still some tidy up to do, but. Did.

I want to be reading What We Are Seeking (Cameron Reed's new book). It is extremely brain-intensive, though. After a week of gaming and not-sleeping-super-well on a hotel pillow, I am just not there.

Midway, aka Not O'Hare, is a perfectly decent little airport. I seem to be the only person I know without at least one O'Hare horror story, but then it's been over a decade since I've gone through there. Regardless, Midway's probably nicer. Also it seems that all airport wifi now has "watch a thirty-second ad before we let you connect," which both irritates me and makes me a little sad. And the glory of the world is less than it once was.

My iPad's charging port is dead yet again. The Enter key on my keyboard is failing to register sometimes. Bah, technology.

I'm in Midway for another couple of hours and then I fly to Minneapolis for a week. And on Friday I have an interview for a "document analyst" position, which sounds like "tech writer with extra steps." The interview is in-person, which I wasn't expecting; I'm just glad it's coming at a halfway convenient time. Sometime this week I shall have to go out and acquire Interview Clothes. This is less annoying than it might be since I don't actually own much in the way of Interview Clothes, at least not that fit.

I'm trying not to think too much about the interview. Not til I'm someplace where I can relax a bit more, anyway. It's with the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council, so it's an In to Local Government which is where I'd like to be. Per the job description it's got some GIS-esque stuff going on; and by my back-of-envelope calculations it pays enough to live on and save a bit. It would be nice, I think. It would certainly be nice to have one of my two Big Immediate Problems solved.

My fingers have been vaguely itchy for the viola the last several days. This is... it's new. I'm enjoying it. I left my violin at Steph's last time so I'll have some outlet / ability to practise, at least, and I've got a flashcard app so I can see how many tunes I can actually remember.

I wish I'd realised sooner how... how good musicking is for me? How it's something that can actually call to me? Something like that. I'm honestly a bit startled that anything does, let alone music. I'd just sort of assumed that Feeling Drawn To A Thing was yet another thing about me that doesn't work like everyone else.

And I don't know how I could have possibly gotten here, not just from where I was but from any plausible diversion from that. If my folks had let me take bass instead of cello, like I wanted to, I'd probably wind up playing bass guitar, which would be pretty cool but not really the same. If one of my early cello teachers had offered something outside of Standard Classical Repertoire... I might have gone somewhere with that? I really don't know. Water under the bridge, regardless. I wish I'd gotten to "here" sooner; I'm pretty happy with where I've gotten to.

Ann C--, a violinist who shared a teacher with me for several years in Fayetteville, pinged me last month to let me know that our teacher had died. I'd been vaguely intending to reach out to Dr Boyce and let her know that I'd picked up viola, but never got around to it. Every so often I try to look up Ms West née Wiley, the bassist/cellist that Dr Boyce handed me off to once I'd gotten past her level of expertise on cello, and I never manage to find anything on her. Tegen, my pre-plague viola teacher, has gotten married, moved down south, and started cranking out babies, Jesus aphorisms, and MLM crap, which is disappointing but not surprising. Musicians: just as human as everyone else. (Ann, incidentally, is also Jesusy, but she appears to at least be the kind of Jesusy that's appalled by the current mask-off Republican party.)

No real resolution to this, which seems fitting for something written in a liminal space. I think I shall go and try to find some tea, and sit and think and zone out for awhile.

My centre is collapsing,
my right is in retreat.
Impossible to manoeuvre.
Situation excellent.
I am attacking.

--Marshal Ferdinand Foch, First Battle of the Marne

sparowe

ODB: Restoration Efforts

Apr 26, 2026/in Our Daily Bread/by YMI

April 26, 2026

READ: 1 Thessalonians 5:11

Encourage one another and build each other up. 1 Thessalonians 5:11

In April 2019, a fire broke out in Notre-Dame de Paris—the city’s famed medieval cathedral—destroying the spire and a “forest” of oak beams supporting the lead roof. Almost immediately, plans formed to restore the cathedral. Donations poured in from across the globe, and craftsmen have undertaken restoration using the same building techniques and the same types of timber and stone employed in the original structure.

When Nebuchadnezzar instructed his armies to set fire to God’s temple in 586 bc as part of his siege on Jerusalem, the structure was decimated (2 Kings 25:9). When the people returned to Jerusalem after decades in captivity in Babylon, they “gave freewill offerings toward the rebuilding of the house of God” (Ezra 2:68)..

After tending first to the altar, they “gave money to the masons and carpenters” and secured “cedar logs by sea from Lebanon” to lay the temple’s foundation (3:7). Though their rebuilding efforts were opposed and even sabotaged, the task was finally completed, and God’s people once again worshiped Him in His temple (6:14-22).

As believers in Jesus, we—together—are God’s temple (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). God equips us to continuously restore fellow believers and “build each other up,” not with wood or stone, but with encouraging words, prayer, and spiritual gifts (1 Thessalonians 5:11).

— Kirsten Holmberg

How are you building up fellow believers in Jesus? How has someone built you up recently?

Thank You, loving Father, for supplying what I need to build up and restore others as Your temple.

Source: Our Daily Bread

Current Mood: thoughtful

numb3r_5ev3n

Yesterday, I tried to air up my tires, to find that the valve stem on one of them was broken. It took the shop longer than expected to fix it - and I had to fix it, because I had to air up that tire to be able to drive around. I got back home to discover that water is dripping down into my bathroom from the vent on the ceiling.

From past experience, I know that it's probably a bad AC coil. But while it's not exactly a flood, it is a pretty steady drip which requires receptacles beneath it, because it's coming down pretty fast.

I know it's not a super huge deal in the grand scheme of things. But I will probably have to stay in today order to get this addressed. Added is the OCD-related stress from "unknown, possible contaminated water is dripping down into my clean bathroom, with who knows what nicotine sludge from previous occupants/germs/mold." Regardless, there go my plans for today. :(

althea_valara

I meant to post this last night, but I was le tired. My schedule has gotten all messed up from dog watching; I've been crashing at 9pm and getting up at 6am. It's only 7:05am and I've already had coffee and a bagel. That's UNHEARD of for me to eat that early!

Anyway: during the gear-up to the start of 3W4DW, I had decided I would post daily during the celebration with some check-ins. Here's the check-in for day one. We will ignore it is now day 2.

1. one creative thing I did today

Not much, but I worked on a swatch for a tee I'm going to knit! Actually, I already started the tee, but (a) I misread the pattern, (b) the icord edge was really tight and making everything look sloppy, so I decided to start over, this time doing a proper swatch instead of just diving in.

I also asked

smallweb for some advice. Actually, I'm interested in non-techy answers, too, so I'll ask here as well:

Currently, my Final Fantasy XI fanscripts are laid out as one expansion's entire mission line on one page, though I have horizontal rules between each mission, and also have "jump to" links at the end of each mission to jump to a different mission. Example page: https://altheavalara.neocities.org/ffxi/rotz

I'm banging my head against those jump-to links. I'm working on documenting the next expac in the series, so I need to put the jump-tos in to be consistent, but... I hand-coded them, and that is a pain. I was trying to figure out if I can automatically insert them with Jekyll magic, but I'm stumped (Jekyll is my static site generator).

So now I'm wondering if it would be better to split the expansion into separate pages for each mission. I could possibly use Jekyll magic for pagination, then. It would mean a LOT more pages on the site, but may be easier to handle? There's benefits and drawbacks to both methods. As a reader, what would you prefer?

2. one thing I'm proud of today

I started cleaning up! I'll be going home today and would like to leave the house pretty much how I left it, so I gathered dirty dishes and garbage and took care of that. I need to run the dishwasher and handwash some dishes, but I'm proud of the start I made instead of leaving it to last minute.

Also, I posted my list of community recs again, as I said I would when 3W4DW started. Go me for following through on a plan.

3. video game progress

Well, being away from home means less video gaming. I pretty much just played WordScapes on my phone. Not much to report there. But I also answered some questions on Mastodon from someone who had FFXIV Free Trial questions, and reposted my starter guide from Bsky to Mastodon... which I might have already done in the past, but whatever, it's reposted.

andrewducker

1. The classic stories of Tumblr: (tags:tumblr fiction short_story )

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

mdlbear

Bad news for the week: Ticia's kidneys are failing, and she's lost a lot of weight since her last check-up. She's been with us for 11 of her 19 years; I don't know how long she'll last. But I've ordered kidney diet cat fud and high-calorie treats. About all I can do. She makes me think of Rodin's "Belle Heaulmière".

And of course that's on top of everything else going wrong in the world. Also, I'm not getting much done. And I somehow screwed up my order for a Travelpro backpack, and left off the house number. Fortunately I was able to update the address, so I got it the next day. It's supposed to fit under an airplane seat, though I have my doubts. It's also supposed to be blue, but it's a really dark blue.

I did have a zoom call with my financial advisor Thursday, mostly about estate planning. Seems like a good time for it. And I heard back from the place that repaired Scarlett -- they're going to look for the missing charger. Fingers crossed. Also heard from the place that's repairing Lizzy; they have no idea what's wrong and are consulting with the factory. I suggested that they should send us a replacement. Haven't heard back about that.

Big congratulations to this year's href=https://filkontario.ca/2026/04/19/2026-filk-hall-of-fame-inductees/ >Filk Hall of Fame inductees, Margaret Davis, Tim Griffin, and Amy McNally. For more musical mayhem, have some Angine de Poitrine

Also, Krakens in the Cretaceous. Possibly as long as 19 meters. Better hope your time machine doesn't land in the water.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Current Mood: deeply annoyed at myself; worried
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag
Current Music: Angine de Poitrine - see post

delphi

✓

kingstoken's 2026 Book Bingo: Main Character Over the Age of 30

Spent by Alison Bechdel is a 2025 fictionalized memoir about a cartoonist (coincidentally named Alison Bechdel) who lives on a farm in Vermont with her partner, running a goat sanctuary while trying to write a graphic novel (or maybe it'll be a television show?) about capitalism (or maybe it's about her group of middle-aged queer friends).

The real Alison Bechdel is the creator of the long-running and groundbreaking comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (1983-2008) and the award-winning graphic novel memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2007), and that knowledge is something I think Spent depends on. It's not just that Sparrow, Stuart, Ginger, and Lois—and a grown-up Jiao Raizel—from Dykes to Watch Out For are fictional!Alison's neighbours in this, or that fictional!Alison is grappling with having an autobiographical success publicly leave her creative control through adaptation. The heart of this work exists in a very specific instant, where a queer leftist artist in middle age and the middle class is sitting at a career crossroads in the global car crash of late-stage capitalism, finding herself in an uncertain position between privileged and marginalized, mainstream and fringe, consumer and creator, progressive and out of touch.

My favourite parts of this book were the subplots with the characters from Dykes to Watch Out For—particularly storylines like Stuart and Sparrow expanding their relationship to a throuple, only for their poly kid to nonetheless jump to the conclusion they're both having affairs—and I found myself wishing I were reading it as a serial strip that could add up to more time with them. But that might be saying something about where and when I'd rather be.

This is a book that got me thinking about a lot of its topics, but more through its general timeliness and the role of Bechdel's work in the culture than through a connection with the characters or something in the writing hitting particularly hard. Still, while even the lighter stories didn't quite land in the right place for me to see myself revisiting them on rainy days, I do want to imagine a better future where I get to go back to this book someday and see it as a snapshot of a weird moment in time where we were all trying to figure some stuff out. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as anyone's first Bechdel, but I'm glad I read it.

( An Excerpt )

ysobel

Another bug dream last night - cw for insecty badness

( Read more... )

lannamichaels

Anyone want anything? Prompts, meta, rants, etc?

Also apparently we're in 3 weeks for dreamwidth, so if anyone wants a general post on something, let me know.

sparowe

ODB: Serving Like Christ

Apr 25, 2026/in Our Daily Bread/by YMI

April 25, 2026

READ: Philippians 2:3-8

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. Philippians 2:5

As I visited a patient in the hospital, I was struck by the actions of a young doctor standing with a team of other inexperienced physicians. The group listened as a more seasoned doctor explained about the patient’s health. Suddenly, the patient anxiously announced that she needed to use the bathroom and couldn’t get up. In fact, she couldn’t wait for a nurse’s aide to be summoned to the room.

Amid the frantic scene, the young doctor got a bed pan off the shelf and assisted the patient. When the nurse’s aide arrived, she was shocked to find someone had already assisted the patient. The lead physician proudly acknowledged the assistance of the young doctor.

Jesus didn’t cling to His divinity and refuse to assist humanity. Though He was “in very nature God, [He] did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage” (Philippians 2:6). As a human, Christ was able to become our sin offering and sacrifice Himself for us. He saw our need for help and salvation, and He humbly laid down His life (v. 8). Paul wrote, “He made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant” (v. 7).

We’re called to imitate Jesus’ attitude and sacrificial ways in our relationships with others. As He helps us, let’s humbly serve them no matter how lowly the job may seem.

— Katara Patton

How can you reflect the attitude and ways of Jesus? What will it look like for you to humbly serve someone today?

Thank You, Jesus, for humbly giving Yourself for my sin. Please show me how to sacrificially serve others.

For further study, read The Forgiveness of God.

Source: Our Daily Bread

Current Mood: thoughtful

ink_13

Wild Card (2015) edition.

This might have worked if they leaned more into the noir elements and set it in, say, the 70s, but instead it's a series of disconnected plot points that don't quite congeal into a through line: characters turn up once and then disappear (a lot of top billings that turn out just to be cameos), character points come out of nowhere (that Statham's character is actually a gambling addict just pops up when convenient).

The film did a cool thing where it would intercut someone considering a course of action with the outcome of the decision a few times, which was actually pretty fun.

2/4. Instead of Corsica, I bet he moves to Nice and takes up driving professionally, thus becoming The Transporter.

nerdsorrow

so I adapted this recipe from watching an anime - but I've found more sources since then. Here's the blended version with some ~authenticity and some convenience.

You will need:
yesterday's cold rice (ideally short grain but any will work)
a mortar and pestle (not optional)
skillet
broiler or toaster oven
nuts (ideally walnuts, subs in order of suitability: cashews, peanuts, almonds)
miso
soy sauce
sugar or mirin
mirin or sake or rice vinegar
optional: sesamie seeds

I usually have about 2 cups of leftover rice when I forget about it in the rice cooker.
Pound/grind the 2c cooked rice with a little water in the mortar and pestle. I'm envisioning a mexican molcajete here, because that's what I have. The big tall mortar and pestle I've seen in se asian and african cooking will also work. A little tiny one will be difficult, but possible. I really really stand by that hand grinding makes the texture. Do it in 2 batches if you are struggling. Try workarounds at your own risk.

Grind the rice until it's a sticky mass, but individual grains are still visible. With wet hands (to prevent sticking) shape it into flat oval patties the size of your palm.
Traditional is to shape it into ovals on skewers and grill it over a fire, but my instructions are for stovetop.

Put the rice patties in a dry, already hot skillet. Cast iron is nice, because it heats evenly, but not required.
Poke them slightly with a spatula from time to time - when they are ready to flip, the bottom surface will have dried out and begun to toast, and they will move easily. Toast both sides.

Take the patties from the heat and set aside. Wash the mortar and pestle. Real wizards will be able to make the sauce while the patties are toasting, but I don't want to stress you out.

In the same mortar and pestle, add 1/3 c walnuts*, 1 tablespoon sesamie seeds if you have them, 1 tablespoon miso, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon mirin or sake or rice vinegar (if you didn't choose mirin, add 1/2 tablespoon sugar or honey because mirin is sweet) and grind until it's a chunky homogenous paste. Add more mirin or vinegar if it seems too thick.

Preheat your broiler or toaster oven

Spread the sauce on the top of the patties, and put them in the broiler/toaster for 3 minutes or until they brown on top.

*a recipe from Tajimi Tourism says use equal parts walnuts, peanuts, and sesamie seeds, but they also say that peanuts were the hot new imported thing in Japan when this recipe was invented. The anime didn't show them, and I think this is a recipe where peanuts don't belong.

dewline

I should not have to set police and lawyers on someone else in order to get physiotherapy, dammit. No one else in similar straits should, either. They should be able to just take their prescription for such treatment to the appropriate clinic and get going without paying out of pocket.

Yes, I do expect that to come out of my OHIP premiums to Queens Park. (Adapt as needed to your home jurisdiction.)

Current Mood: annoyed

althea_valara

Colorful image that says 3weeks4dreamwidth friending meme

Friending Meme! Come make new friends!

OKAY FOLKS it is time for another round of Althea's List of Interesting Dreamwidth Communities! I last posted this during

snowflake_challenge this year, so just a few months ago, but I've stealth added some more since then.

Rules:
1. Share freely! This post is public for that reason.
2. If you know of a good comm and want to see it featured, comment and I'll very likely add it.
3. I refuse to add comms that full of bigotry and hate. That seems to not be a Dreamwidth thing, but I am sure they are out there. I'm here for supportive / fun places!

And now, here's the list! ~~They are roughly in reverse chronological order to when they've been added, so newer ones are at the top.~~ EDIT @ 12:22pm: I've redone the list to be broken down roughly alphabetical by category, which should make it easier to manage!

Dreamwidth

Non-official communities to help make your time on Dreamwidth more rich.

3weeks4dreamwidth is a thing in which people post/interact more on Dreamwidth, to show love for the platform. ♥

addme_fandom A friend finding community, but with a specific fandom focus! Interested in a particular fandom right now and want more people to talk about it with? Here’s a good place to find fellow fans!

addme_fandom is a place to find friends who share your fannish obsessions.

findingfriends : Similar to the addme communities but with a more in-depth approach, including things like posting style and what sort of interactions you’re looking for. Takes more brain power than the addme comms, but I imagine that the connections result in a higher level of compatibility.

followfriday recommends people/communities to follow each Friday.

getting_started is a community with resources for those new to Dreamwidth.

moodthemeinayear is what it says on the tin: the folks there are working on creating custom Dreamwidth mood themes over the course of a year.

reddit_refugees offers resources for newcomers to Dreamwidth.

snowflake_challenge runs in January, and is a way to celebrate fandom and meet interesting people on Dreamwidth.

sunshine_challenge Like snowflake_challenge but runs in the summer months (northern hemisphere, but our Southern Friends experiencing winter are welcome too!)

twitter_refugees is for folks migrating to Dreamwidth from Twitter.

Bingos

Creative or commenting challenges based on a bingo card.

allbingo - They do all sorts of bingos, mostly writing-related but I think they've had some crafting ones as well. There's new challenges monthly!

comment_bingo is a bingo challenge community for commenting on all those fanfics you read.

genprompt_bingo - for the writers! They generate bingo cards of prompts, with all the prompts being gen. You can, of course, write a shippy fic from the prompt – it’s just the prompts themselves that are gen.

ladiesbingo is a bingo challenge to make works focused on the relationship between women, whether gen, femslash, or familial. I'm currently having great fun trying to fill my bingo board!

lyricaltitles is a bingo fest for fanfiction and original fiction centering around using songs for inspiration!

vid_bingo is a community for vidders to use bingo card prompts to inspire vids

Prompts

Writing or creative challenges that are prompt-based but not bingo cards:

100words is a drabble community for fiction of all kinds. They post weekly challenges there.

1character is a writing challenge where you choose a character and prompt set, then write one line sentences to fill each prompt.

25poemsamonth is a community where a 25 prompt table is posted at the beginning of every month and then, members have until the beginning of the next to fill as many prompts as possible.

fan_flashworks is a multifandom comm that posts one prompt for the week you use to write a short fanfic.

ffprompts posts monthly prompts for the Final Fantasy video game franchise. As a big fan of this series, I'd love to see more fills for the prompts happening!

fic_promptly is created for leaving prompts and answering prompts. All fandoms are allowed, as are original work and real-person work. Fills can be fics or poems. There is no minimum/maximum word count.

inspiredby posts writing prompts monthly.

kittens_and_spitefic 's goal is to prompt fan content by acting like a total troll and pretending to bash what you want to see up one side and down the other. Commenters then engage with the supposed "troll" by spamming them with cat (and other animal) macros and/or content that caters to everything the original poster professes to hate.

sweetandshort is a low-pressure community for creating small fanworks / original works each week.

threesentenceficathon People leave prompts, other write short fills of 3 sentences or longer.

Writing

Writing-related communities that aren't Bingos or Prompts.

10trueloves is a writing challenge where you pair a character with ten others (IIRC, they don't have to be romantic pairings, but I'm not sure – check the comm rules for more info!)

getyourwordsout is a writing challenge community where you can challenge yourself by wordcount of number of days written per month.

makezines is for folks doing just that!

Icons

Icon-creating challenges and other icon communities.

iconthat is another icon challenge community.

your_favourites is an icon making community that migrated over from LiveJournal. Looks like they have themes for members to create icons for, and then take a vote for best icon. I've joined it in hopes of finding more icons to add to my own journal.

Books

Read-alongs and other book communites:

booknook posts a weekly Read-in-Progress check-in posts on Wednesdays.

queerbookclub is a no pressure book club dedicated to fiction books of all genres that are queer in some way! each month we take suggestions on what the next month's book should be and we vote on it. if you're not interested in the book for the month, that's perfectly fine!

readingtogether - has seen some activity the past few months. It's not like a normal book club where everyone reads the same thing - instead everyone reads their own thing and posts their progress.

Crafts and General Creativity

everykindofcraft is what it says it is.

get_knitted posts daily check-ins. The folks there are GREAT about commenting on each other's comments. It's not just for knitting, either - there are people there who do scrapbooking and jigsaw puzzles.

justcreate - has weekly check in posts where you can update everyone on your creative progress. All kinds of creativity are celebrated there, including fiber arts, drawing, writing, and more.

nacramamo is National Craft-Making Month, and is gearing up now to kick off in October. The challenge is to work on some kind of craft every day for 31 days.

communal_creators is a community for creative types! A mini-round for time pledges will be happening this spring. ANY kind of creativity is welcome! We have people writing (both fic and original), knitting, crochet, vidding, storyboarding, baking, making websites... if it's creative, you're welcome here.

drawesome - has drawing challenges. I haven't taken part yet because I am a very sucky drawer, but I hope to start there in the future.

Culture

Communities focusing on a specific culture.

c_ent is for Chinese Entertainment, and comes highly recommended by a few people.

latam is a new community for people to come together to talk about latinamerican music, films, food, culture, fandom, and more! Everyone's welcome, no matter where you're posting from! And you can also post in your language (official languages of the community are Spanish, Portuguese and English!)

senzenwomen is a community regaling the histories of women in and around Japan, 1868-1945. Thanks to vriddy for signal boosting this fascinating community!

Nature

What it says on the tin.

birdfeeding covers everything to do with birdfeeding, gardening for wildlife, and related topics.

common_nature is a photo community to share nature pics from your area, and has been active recently.

Fandom & Gaming

Communities about fandom in general and in specific.

allkindsofdolls is what it says on the tin. If you love dolls, check it out.

anime_manga has seen some activity lately!

bnha_fans is for fans of Boku no Hero Academia

fandom_on_dw : Pretty much the same as above, honestly, but it’s good that there’s more than one place that hosts this kind of thing!

fandomcalendar : This is a community dedicated to announcing fandom events, which can include fandom-specific friending memes.

fictional_fans : A community for all fans and fandoms. If you’ve got a post you want to make about fandom in general, or a specific fandom that doesn’t have its own community, this might be a good place to check out.

finalfantasy - of course this would be here, if you know me. It's been very slow there lately, but I'd love to see more activity there.

indie_games sometimes sees activity, and in the past, we did a play-together of A Short Hike.

Social Justice

Because the world is a mess and we just need to fix it.

fandomtrumpshate raises money for charity by creating fanworks.

thissterlingcrew is the UK equivalent of the below.

thisfinecrew is a social justice community focused on the USA. It doesn't get as much action as i once did but there are still informative posts there once in a while.

womansplace is a community that holds dual purpose: 1) Celebrate characters who identify as women or who are aligned with womanhood in transformative fan works. Events include community recs, a prompt fest, and a vid exchange. 2) Raise funds via a vid auction

Other Communties

These didn't fit in the other categories but I feel are interesting enough to warrant being on this post!

queerly_beloved : An anti-exclusionist queer space to get together and talk about all things queer, including intersectional matters. Hosts a weekly recommendations thread, but more and other content is very welcome!

1word1day posts a vocabulary word a day!

agonyaunt - critiques letters to advice columnists and the answers the letter writers get. I love this community because it is filled with smart people that I am learning a lot from. I'm a person of a certain age, and I know because of the timeframe I grew up in I have a lot of inherit biases and whatnot. I try to be above those biases, but sometimes I don't recognize them. Reading the other commenters to agonyaunt helps me recognize those biases and better myself.

awesomeers - they make a post for each day of the week in which they challenge the members to comment with Just One Thing you did today that you're proud of accomplishing. Of course you are free to post more than one thing if you'd like! I love the idea of this community, though I haven't been very active in it lately. I hope to change that, if only to congratulate other people. Also: we celebrate all accomplishments there, so something as simple as "I got out of bed" would be acceptable!

bujo for bullet journalers.

crowdfunding connects creators, patrons, and fans of cyberfunded creativity. Watch for the mid-month Creative Jam with a new theme each time.

do_it - A community for posting to-do lists to make yourself accountable to others.

holiday_wishes - active in the last two months of the year. People post their holiday wish lists there, and others fill them! I really was blessed one year - I got a bunch of cards, some yarn, some chocolate, and some other sweet treats. &hearts

journalsandplanners - what it says on the tin: for those who use a journal or planner to organize their lives.

reference_library is a place to gather helpful links and share them, run by sharpest_asp

signalboost is for getting the word out to others about people needing help in some way.

Current Mood: cheerful

andrewducker

I've been working my way back through some albums I haven't listened to in decades, to see how they hold up.

I just started a shower with Sisters of Mercy: Floodland, and sang along with the whole first song, despite not having heard it in 30 years.

Brought back a lot of university memories too.

Funny thing, memory.

jadelennox

I hope Nael, currently age 16-ish, is doing very well, and still writing delightful poems about tigers.

tcpip

As predicted, this entire week I've been buried in work and study, a stark contrast to the week prior, when I engaged in a myriad of artistic engagements. As part of my doctoral studies, I've powered my way through the University of Chicago's content on climate modelling. The professor, David Archer, understands the physics, the modelling, and even the trickier issues involved in translating one to the other, especially given the handful of uncertainties and modelling challenges at scales. His book, "Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast" is a worthwhile introduction to the subject. I have not yet decided what my major paper will be for this study; although I must mention that my paper "Energy Production Under The Paris Agreement: Options for Developing Pacific Island Countries" from the course "Global Energy and Climate Policy" has been accepted for The Intergovernmental Research and Policy Journal; I just have to clear up some formatting issues (one day, we'll all use Markdown).

One fortunate side of my work in supercomputing is the access to some particularly big iron, which might be useful in these situations. The University's own system, Spartan, has grown from being an innovative experimental system on a shoestring budget to become one of the world's top supercomputers. But another part of my role is working with the West Australian Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, home of Setonix, Australia's most powerful system (named after the quokka, you know). This week, we had a visitor from WA, from Pawsey, to discuss the system, and I was involved in wrangling a lecture theatre full of Spartan researchers to come along and hear about how to get access to this grander system. It was a bit of a highlight for the week, as I'm also organising a major project which includes a couple of major transitions which I strongly disagree with on a technical level, which I know will come back and bite us in the future. But I have long been an advocate of not letting work decisions upset me, and I am all too familiar with people acting as if technical limits are negotiable.

I rather suspect that next week is going to be a bit like the past week; the combination of full-time work and full-time study often means there are periods when my social life suffers quite a lot, and this is one of those times when the pointy end of multiple deadlines is looming. It is times like these that I feel a great deal of gratitude for the especially calm and studious Rookery I've built for myself, and for finding myself in a profession where extended periods of solitude are highly beneficial for output. I guess in the past people found themselves in a secluded hermitage; instead, I find myself in the midst of a vibrant city with the plentiful beauty of art and nature, and it takes some willpower to stay focused.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: The Rookery
Current Music: Aldred Schnittke, String Trio

dewline

So this looks like fun. And the history of how it got to the theatres makes the trailer more delicious, yes?

Of course, the timing is even more Problematic now, right?

Current Mood: nerdy

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kaberett - event: achieved
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sparowe - YMI -- ODB: 26 April 2026
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dewline - Coyote vs. Acme: The First Trailer

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