sqbr | Reading

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30

Daily Happiness

Sunday, June 25th, 2017 01:06 am

1. The city fireworks show was tonight and it was sooooooo loud and really scared the kitties, but they've all come out of hiding now and seem to be back to normal. I gave them lots of treats when they finally came out.

2. McDonald's has these really tasty blueberry cream pies right now. Carla loves the strawberry ones, too, and has gotten them a bunch, but while I thought those were okay, I wasn't super into them. But these blueberry ones are so good! And it's weird, because I usually like strawberry more than blueberry, but idk. The blueberry one is so much better.

3. Everybody loves this box so much. It's got nice flaps to make you feel hidden, and rustly paper inside to play with. Just the best box. Three out of three kitties recommend.

Tags:

A week off

aris_tgd

Saturday, June 24th, 2017 07:34 pm

Well, I was going to take a few days off to relax, and then I tried to get up and do work and my body said NOPE.

But on the other hand, I'm feeling quite well-rested!

Let's see. I've been watching more Critical Role. I'm halfway through! I mean, I've watched over 50 episodes now, only 50 more to go, and they're making more every week! Ah heh. Heh.

The "new" opener they revealed at episode 50 is pretty amazing, I have to admit. ( Plot things. )

I also just watched another bootleg copy of "Hello, Dolly!"--This one filmed from much closer to the stage, with more audience reactions. And it's a very good production! They went a little low on "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" for their Dolly, which was a shame, but overall it was a terrific cast and really solid performances. The humor really landed this time, which was awesome. I also have a copy of a more recent show with Bette Midler as Dolly (!!) but I haven't seen it yet.

It's a little ironic considering the most recent Captain Awkward letter on terrible matchmaking, but I do love this show. It's ridiculous and its premise is that nobody knows what they actually want except for Dolly Levi, but what the heck. Its songs still make me happy, especially when the cast nails them, which this cast did.

I think I'm going to check out the David Campbell "Company" I got in the same lot of bootlegs. Ahhhh, feels.

Tags:

reviews

Days goals

fred_mouse

Sunday, June 25th, 2017 09:43 am

some very vague goals for the day

1. get some housework done
2. make progress on writing related projects
3. close many tabs in my browser

at 10pm:
1. bedroom is much tidier and cleaner, two other rooms were vacuumed. some other bits and pieces done
2. ah, bugger. completely forgot about getting on the computer while I still had brain for writing
3. yes! Not all of them, but getting there.

Tags:

(no subject)

sanguinity

Saturday, June 24th, 2017 01:01 pm

holmestice finished posting! Reveals are on the 27th; in the meanwhile go and admire all the lovely things! I particularly recommend my own gift, "The Case of the Deceased Marmalade Thief", which is an utter delight.

--

It's been ages since my last proper update. Highlights!

I got a camera for my birthday back in March...

( obligatory kitty pics )

( obligatory I-can't-stand-my-face selfies )

Then the current round of Holmestice began, PRECISELY when the Livejournal TOS fuckery hit the fan. I will not say that this round has been a clusterfuck, because I think it mostly hasn't been? But pulling off this round has been more effort and cursing than any of us planned for. Happily, I have great co-mods, and there is wonderful satisfaction in looking at ALL THE THINGS and knowing we facilitated that happening. Even if we're still trying to finish backing up the damn comm.

In early May we went to Colorado and Wyoming for a week to visit

grrlpup's family. Not half an hour out of the airport, we got caught in an impressive hailstorm; Grrlpup is still wrangling with the rental car and insurance companies over how many thousands of dollars that storm is or isn't going to cost us. The rest of the trip was pretty good, but socially taxing. As always, it was wonderful to see her friends and family; as always, I was very happy to get back home again.

In June,

grrlpup had her birthday. We have become my parents' generation: when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she asked that I actually do that one home-improvement task I'd been promising to do for two years. So I spent a few days bolting and screwing bookshelves to the wall, while pretending I wasn't doing any such thing.

Her: What are you doing? Are you painting boards? Why are you painting boards?
Me: [flagrantly painting boards] Boards? What boards?

( front room shelves )

Later today,

crazy_marcia, for whom we crewed the Badwater Ultra and with whom I used to climb mountains, is coming to visit.

(For those who didn't know me back then, the Badwater Ultra is a 135/143-mile footrace through Death Valley and up to the top of Mt. Whitney, always held during the height of summer. And by "height of summer," I mean 120-degree heat, woot! The two mountains I've climbed with her are both non-trivial: Mt. Whitney by the Mountaineer's Route, and Mt. Rainier, which involves glacier travel, and thus is a technical climb. Both mountains are near-abouts 14,500 feet high and Exciting Shit Went Wrong on both peaks.)

Anyway, I'm weirdly nervous about seeing Marcia -- it's been an age since we last spoke, and I got lazy and fat and don't have adventures anymore, and what if she doesn't like me now??? -- but scanning back over these old trip reports, I feel very silly. We're going to sit around and gossip, not pull one of our what-were-you-even-thinking-people-die-doing-that-shit adventures. What could possibly go down today to be worth being nervous about? I mean, seriously.

(Actually, given that Marcia will be in attendance, I would not be the least bit surprised if we save someone from a close brush with death later today. FURTHER BULLETINS AS EVENTS WARRANT.)

Trevor Noah between segments of The Daily Show

colorblue

Saturday, June 24th, 2017 09:03 am

On the Philando Castile shooting and the police in the US:

Watch on YouTube

From The Daily Kos.

( Read more... )

Daily Happiness

torachan

Saturday, June 24th, 2017 01:11 am

1. I finished another book tonight, which makes thirty-three for the year so far. I have moved my initial goal from twenty to thirty and then to forty, but I'm thinking I'm going to have to move it again at this rate, because the year's only halfway through.

2. I spoke with the insurance claim person today and she said that it sounded like since we were both backing up, it would be a 50/50 thing, which would mean our insurance wouldn't go up and we would be liable for half the deductible. So, possibly still have to pay a lot in car repairs, depending on how much it costs to repair the damage, but it could be worse.

3. Look at this fluffy Chloe tum! She just loves the tummy scritches. :)

Tags:

Stalking, social networks and scripts

samvara

Saturday, June 24th, 2017 11:24 am

*taps mic* is this thing still on?

Two things

I'm gonna need to vent for a few days (weeks?) until I stop having all these feelings
This was SO MUCH LESS HORRIBLE because I had support and advice and information so I am paying it forward.

In brief: I went to a tech conference, I got a call in my hotel room on my hotel phone at 11pm from a man with an American accent who said he’d been watching me, it looked like I was having fun in my hotel room, and how about he join me in my hotel room. I declined and hung up. My chat group validated my initial horrified reaction and supported me through calling hotel security, getting my room changed, and his eventual discovery and expulsion from the hotel.

On stalking: It is never OK to do this kind of thing, it is not funny, it is not sexy. It made me feel unsafe. It meant the next day, until he was gone, that I second-guessed every interaction at that conference (of which men were probably 90% of the attendees) and wasted a lot of energy managing anxiety when I could have been benefiting from that very expensive conference ticket. I’m probably going to be having feelings about this for a long time.

On social networks: I was too busy being half awake and alarmed to have an effective response when this happened. It took time to process, it was my social network who prompted me through calling security and requesting the room change, I asked for my conference ID badge to be redacted on my own, but it took a few hours before I was thinking strategically and not just feeling overwhelmed. They validated my feelings, made me feel like it was OK to ask for what I needed, and meant I never felt alone.

THANK YOU.

Treasure the good people you meet in your life, nurture those relationships and share your strength when you can.

On scripts: Being prepared, having a response, knowing what I could say or do or expect can make a huge difference to my emotional well being, and to how I choose to act. It enables me to act rather than freeze up in difficult situations, it means I can protect myself, and it means I can stand up for myself and others.

My proposed future Script

Complain to hotel security, that’s what they are for
Request a room change, a different room when someone creepy knows where you are is A Good Thing.
Complain to the police - I am sad I did not do this, awful!person could have been going home with a police record that might contribute to a future someone’s safety.

This is gonna work better from some humans than others, I’m going to wield being a white woman-ish person as hard as I can given it’s what I have to work with.

On positive action: One of my coping strategies is to try and find a positive action I can do, it helps me channel fear and anger into something that generates better feelings, and makes me feel less helpless when faced with something awful. My positive actions for this event are:

To share this with you; may this be in some way useful or empowering for you
To inoculate my workplace (via complaining about this a lot) in order to a) share my script with female coworkers and b) let my male coworkers know this is not OK and has consequences.
To reflect on how lucky I am to have such excellent support networks, that there were responsive hotel staff, and supportive conference staff

( Chat transcript )

Gah. The End.

Tags:

Daily Happiness

torachan

Friday, June 23rd, 2017 01:06 am

1. Went out to lunch with my mom today for my birthday (which is actually Monday). We went to California Pizza Kitchen and I got the carne asada pizza, which was delicious.

2. I got in a car accident on the way home, which sucks a whole lot, but it was on the minor side of accidents, so I'm trying to keep positive about that. There's only a little bit of bumper damage to my car and the other car and no one was hurt. (I had just pulled in a parking space and was readjusting my parking, and the other person was pulling out of her space opposite me, and...crunch.) I'm hoping the repairs don't cost too much, are covered by the insurance, and don't make my payments go up too high. *crosses fingers*

3. Jasper!

Tags:

Voila!

leecetheartist

Friday, June 23rd, 2017 02:49 pm

For my next trick, I will now break a glass into the washing up. Oh, wait, that was my current trick. Okay, for my *next* trick, watch as I gingerly search for the pieces in the soapy water amongst the other washing up. Farewell Vegemite jar glass.

Friday also a write-off

fred_mouse

Friday, June 23rd, 2017 01:59 pm

After lazing about all yesterday, hoping I was getting enough rest, I then went and ran errands in the late afternoon (acquired 'Mao's Last Dancer' at very acceptable price so youngest could finish watching it as they had missed that class session; dealt with 'need more credit' on youngest's phone; gave in to temptation at a cheap books stall), stopped in at the shops and bought sausages at the butcher and hot chips at the chippy, and then socialised.

And then this morning I dragged myself out of bed and went with artisanat and eldest to deal with shopping. Halfway through, I realised that this had been more of a commitment than I was cut out for, so instead of going with artisanat to the next thing, I flopped in bed and let everyone else do the responsible adult things (mostly putting the cold items in fridge/freezer). Did go with artisanat to get him to work after that, and drove the car home, but have spent the rest of the day so far in bed. Painkillers, coffee, left-overs, and a helpful other individual are all good things, but even put together have not got my pain below three-ish.

Tags:

An observation

sami

Friday, June 23rd, 2017 11:31 am

Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood features new areas which, so far, are heavily fantasy-mediaeval-Japan in theme.

The aesthetic is super Japanese, the names are Japanese, and also, I have to say, there are here and there some stereotypes and portrayals that would, to me, seem really kind of offensive and racist if it weren't for the part where Final Fantasy XIV is made by a Japanese company under the direction of Naoki Yoshida.

I feel like I can't really object to portrayals of Japanese culture as authorised by Square Enix and Yoshi-P.

So I shall just have fun tooling around Kugane and make plans to buy a house in Shirogane and go NOPE MUST BE FINE NOT EVEN GONNA THINK ABOUT IT, because, really, a Japanese company making a game in Japan can do whatever the hell they want with Japanese cultural and historical everything.

It's just kind of weird to keep tripping over things I'd find kind of skeevy if it was made by non-Japanese people.

Weekly Reading

torachan

Thursday, June 22nd, 2017 05:10 pm

What are you currently reading?
I have just one chapter (about twenty pages) left to go in The New Jim Crow, so I will probably finish that either tonight or tomorrow. One thing I learned in the most recent chapter, which I had no idea about is that although prisoners cannot vote while imprisoned, the prison populations are used in creating voting districts and such. Most prisons are built in rural areas with very low, mostly white populations. These areas should hold very little power based on population, but because their numbers are padded by thousands of non-voting (mostly black) prisoners, they gain much more weight. Like the extreme gerrymandering in so many areas, this is nothing but an obvious power grab by republicans who know they don't have the numbers to support themselves in a fair vote. >:(

I'm also just a few chapters away from finishing The Library at Mount Char, too. This book is definitely a wild ride and I'm looking forward to seeing how it ends.

What did you recently finish reading?
I finished up Public Library and Other Stories yesterday, spurred on by the fact that it was due back at the library today. Overall I enjoyed the stories, but found the title and cover blurbs a bit misleading. There was no story called Public Library, and the stories were not so much library-themed as language- and book-themed. They were still good stories, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting.

What do you think you'll read next?
Well, I had pre-ordered the new 7 Seeds and just got an email from Amazon last night that it had been downloaded to my ipad, so I will probably be reading that pretty soon. The last chapter apparently came out this month, but I'm not sure how many more volumes that will be since I don't follow the chapters as they're published, but probably just one or two. Maybe more if she does bonus material like she did for Basara.

Tags:

Scanlations: Koi-iji: Love Glutton ch. 18

torachan

Thursday, June 22nd, 2017 02:39 pm

Title: Koi-iji: Love Glutton
Original Title: こいいじ (Koiiji)
Author: Shimura Takako
Publisher: Kiss
Genre: Josei
Status in Japan: 6 volumes, ongoing
Scanlator: Megchan's Scanlations feat. Migeru
Scanlation Status: Ongoing
More Info: Baka Updates

Summary: 31-year-old Mame has been in love with her childhood friend Souta ever since she can remember. Despite multiple rejections, her love has stayed constant. It's become a habit more than anything, but is it one she'll ever be able to break and get on with her life?

Chapter Summary: Souta's reaction when Mame tells him she broke up with Kawada-san is the last thing she was expecting.

Chapter 18: Something's Gotta Give

Tags:

All the cool kids are playing Bingo

jesse_the_k

Thursday, June 22nd, 2017 02:11 pm

on twitter & FB...but I'd rather do it here.

I made this card at
http://myfreebingocards.com
Then I download others' cards, use a photo editor to check off shared interests, and repost.

( Jesse the Kingo card described )

Tags:

meme,
silly

Daily Happiness

torachan

Thursday, June 22nd, 2017 01:16 am

1. My library book was due tomorrow and I was afraid I might not finish it in time, but I ended up finishing it this afternoon after work, and then we took a walk to the library this evening and dropped it off. (Bonus Happiness: This branch has a fancy book drop off outside where it actually scans the book as you put it in the slot, so there's no more worries that you drop it off and then it doesn't get properly checked in and you're shown as overdue.)

2. We stopped at Hungry Pocket on the way back from the library and got lamb shawarma for dinner. Haven't been there in ages, but it's as delicious as ever.

3. Look at these two sweeties sleeping together!

Tags:

life lived in dot points

fred_mouse

Thursday, June 22nd, 2017 03:37 pm

Tuesday night, after gaming, did online part of first aid course that I had signed up to almost at the last minute. This was being run specifically for members of the local kink community, but I lobbed in as well because I knew the organiser and I kinda need to get my certification, and I hadn't been doing anything about it.
Yesterday, did practical part of first aid course, so I should now have an active first aid certificate. The kink related aspects were really interesting, and it was great to see the trainer really get on board with trying to understand what likely scenarios might have been. Appreciated that they were okay with a random extra in the room.
Today, flat as pancake. Except:
Knock on front door just before 8:30am turned out to be the painter (who thinks they gave me the wrong day, and I just don't think I put them in the calendar at all. At least one of us is right). Ceiling in spare room now all repaired from the damage from the hot water service people; also the other patch in the ceiling has been painted (I paid for that bit myself). As a result, house is cold, *and* smells of paint (spare room outside door is open and internal door is closed, but the paint smell is still getting to me).
Oven repair person was running early; eldest and I did a frantic rush around in the 15 minutes between call and arrival to make the kitchen a bit tidier and so that there was bench space for them to work at. Oven door is in better condition than it was, but has been taken away so that the front glass can be glued back on, because apparently the special heat resistant resin is giving up, and it needs to be done at the depot and cured for ~48 h, so I'll get that back on Monday.
Youngest had skate camp Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning - I got bits of my report done during those times.
Anything else I'm supposed to have done has slipped through my fingers. Feel like I'm behind on everything - trying to be kind to myself today, and allowing for high pain and low coping because it was inevitable after doing physically and emotionally challenging things all yesterday, but, oh, I'd love to have done Everything.
Lotsa rain last night. Suspicious drip sounding noise above my head at some point of the night. Hoping it was dreaming (I woke a few times in the middle of really 'present' feeling dreams).
...and there might be other things, but I have to go collect youngest from the train and take them to dance.

Tags:

Snow in Perth

leecetheartist

Wednesday, June 21st, 2017 04:57 pm

Perthites! Check out the snow forecast at https://www.onewordforsnow.org/ I might try to see it next week.

Daily Happiness

torachan

Wednesday, June 21st, 2017 12:52 am

1. Work was so exhausting today for some reason, but it's over now, yay. Hopefully tomorrow won't be quite as hectic.

2. Jasper and Molly were actually playing together a little bit tonight! I'm really glad to see them interacting a little more, and would love it that continued.

3. I keep seeing people post about the heat elsewhere in the state and even just elsewhere in LA county, and I'm so glad we aren't getting it. D:

4. Is this a pretty Chloe or what!?

Tags:

Scanlations: You Will Hear the Voice of the Dead ch. 14-15

torachan

Tuesday, June 20th, 2017 07:51 pm

Title: You Will Hear the Voice of the Dead
Original Title: 死人との声をきくがよい (Shibito no Koe wo Kiku ga Yoi)
Author: Hiyodori Sachiko (Uguisu Sachiko)
Publisher: Champion Red Comics
Genre: Shounen
Status in Japan: 9 volumes, ongoing
Scanlator: Megchan's Scanlations feat. Nostal
Scanlation Status: Ongoing
More Info: Baka Updates

Summary: Sickly Kishida Jun has the ability to see ghosts, but in his opinion, it's a stupid power and nothing good ever comes of it. Considering the number of grisly situations he seems to find himself in after the ghost of his childhood friend Hayakawa Ryoko starts following him around, he may have a point.

Chapter Summary: In this two-parter, the occult club plans a retreat at a cabin in the woods only to be attacked by a serial killer.

Chapter 14: Night of the Slayer
Chapter 15: Night of the Slayer II

Tags:

Book Review – Company Town by Madeline Ashby

prk

Sunday, April 2nd, 2017 12:45 pm

Company Town by Madeline Ashby
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Started off and developed well but I still have no idea what happened in the last few chapters. The ending felt very abrupt and unsatisfactory.

The world building was good, the characters were interesting, the plot seemed to progress quite well, and then it felt like I was reading the end of a different book.

View all my reviews

Mirrored from P.R. Kaye's Presence.

Thorns

June 2017

Navigation

Links

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

Daily Happiness

A week off

Days goals

(no subject)

Trevor Noah between segments of The Daily Show

Daily Happiness

Stalking, social networks and scripts

Daily Happiness

Voila!

Friday also a write-off

An observation

Weekly Reading

Scanlations: Koi-iji: Love Glutton ch. 18

All the cool kids are playing Bingo

Daily Happiness

life lived in dot points

Snow in Perth

Daily Happiness

Scanlations: You Will Hear the Voice of the Dead ch. 14-15

Book Review – Company Town by Madeline Ashby