oursin: Frontispiece from C17th household manual (Accomplisht Lady)
oursin ([personal profile] oursin) wrote2025-09-21 07:46 pm
Entry tags:

Culinary

Last week's bread became really, really, dry, so I made a loaf of Shipton Mill Three Malts and Sunflower Organic Brown Flour: very nice.

Friday night supper: the ersatz Thai fried rice with red bell pepper, chorizo and salsiccon salami.

Saturday breakfast rolls: basic buttermilk, 3:1 strong white/rye flour, turned out very well.

Today's lunch: lemon sole fillets, which I cooked more or less as for the whole soles here - slightly shorter time and lower oven temperature, also sploshed a little wine in; served with La Ratte potatoes roasted in beef dripping, spinach according to recipe in Dharamjit Singh's Indian Cookery, and warm green bean and fennel salad (I included a little chopped red onion as there was one left over from last week as well as the fennel, and added additional tarragon to the dressing).

eeyore_grrl ([personal profile] eeyore_grrl) wrote2025-09-21 10:58 am

Intrigant -- week 10 LJ Idol Wheel of Chaos




		Intrigant

i want
a doctor who sees my body with intrigue
a case to be solved
not just a fat body to lose weight
i want someone who sees the whole
and wonders how it is connected
and notices that my hip bone is
         in fact
         connected to my knee bone
through tendons and tears and tears alike

i want
		apparently too much
	a sleuth to look at me with intrigue
		not just a woman with “womanly” problems
				to be
					
			ignored

why is that so much to ask

yeah
	i’m fat
yeah
	i’m woman
but my pain is real 
	and i want it solved
so my tears and tears 
	aren’t mine and mine alone

					any more






umadoshi: (cozy autumn blankets (verhalen))
Ysabet ([personal profile] umadoshi) wrote2025-09-21 02:29 pm

Weekly proof of life: work, impending work, and at least a bit of clutter tamed

Posted elsenet yesterday: Queen's Quality is the only manga I've worked on with a simulpub release (for the last few years of its run), and now I'm down to odds & ends and small corrections that need doing for its final compiled volume. Feels a bit strange, having properly said goodbye months ago when adapting the epilogue.

That's this weekend's work, which I'd hoped to get done sooner than this (due to the Dayjob crunch starting this week, not because I'm running late), but I don't have the translation for my next assignment yet anyway, so I guess it's worked out fine. I do hope I can get this done today, though. (And I wish I'd gotten that translation and could have started adapting it this weekend, given. >.<)

Queen's Quality is one of those series that switched publishers/titles partway through its run (very early, in this case), and there's always something a bit amusing about being like, "I'm working on vol. 25, which is the final volume. I've worked on this story for 27 of its 28 volumes." (Which is to say, in this case, that Queen's Quality was preceded by three volumes of an initial series called QQ Sweeper, and someone else adapted vol. 1 of that one.)

[personal profile] scruloose and I have been getting some household puttering done, which was desperately needed. We're both prone to letting piles of ~stuff~ slowly accumulate, and getting some of that beaten back before work swallows my life for however long is a relief. (Especially since that type of visual clutter is one of the sensory things that starts to bother me far too easily when I'm stressed. It starts to feel like I'm being loomed over.

[personal profile] scruloose also hung up a piece of wall shelving for displaying things in my office! I have no clear idea yet of what will wind up on it, as most small things that go on such a shelf are just sort of stashed around my office in bins or odd places. I'll have to dig through some drawers and see what surfaces.

(I see the usefulness of the "a place for everything, and everything in its place" concept, but am terribly unclear on how that actually works for most people in practice, given how many sorts of objects [that do in fact see use] don't really lend themselves to "this object resides here in the house". We're very much not minimalists, which doesn't help, but...yeah. Like what do you do with, say, a vacuum cleaner if you don't have some closet space that lends itself to being the vacuum's home?)

(A while ago my mother-in-law forwarded a couple of pics she'd come across of our place not long after we'd moved in, when we were unpacked and a bit settled. It's incredible how alien it looked--the original horrible paint colors, some furniture that's been LONG since replaced--but I think the biggest thing is the complete absence of anything cat-related.)
runpunkrun: the king of all cosmos' pea-sized prince (katamari damashii)
Punk ([personal profile] runpunkrun) wrote2025-09-21 09:22 am
Entry tags:

Duolingo Japanese Vocabulary, Vol 4

Like many things this year, my Japanese study has been greatly reduced by time and circumstance. In January I stopped doing my daily work on WaniKani (where I'd reached Level 9) and KaniWani but kept up with my lessons on Duolingo. Much of my vocabulary has slipped away from me, but the grammar persists, and the vocabulary's easy to look up, so I'm not that bad off, and I can pick WaniKani back up whenever I want because I have a lifetime subscription. I'm just gonna be SUPER BEHIND when I do. ウヘッ。


Volume 4

Describe a wedding | Make plans to go out

Vol 4 )
mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)
mdlbear ([personal profile] mdlbear) wrote2025-09-21 06:08 pm
Entry tags:

Done Since 2025-09-14

A very busy week. Perhaps not quite as productive as we'd hoped. But anyway, we put down a lot of scratch tracks, and put in a total of eight hours of studio time. Some of which is definitely going to have to be re-done. Not clear how much we can salvage, but we learned a lot.

Meanwhile I re-strung Plink, in part so that I could replace the battery. I broke a wire in the process of trying (unsuccessfully) to get the new 9V battery into the clip. Thereby accelerating my long-term goal of mounting the battery outside. An ill wind, and all that. I still need to buy a new battery holder, and see if I can locate my soldering iron.

As if I didn't have enough rabbit holes to fall into, I've discovered a static (web)site generator called Hakyll. Written in Haskell. See Tuesday. I am (so far) not looking in that direction.

And as if we didn't have enough problems to throw money at, we decided to call in a plumber after the kitchen sink leaked all over the floor one time too many. He confirmed my speculation that the mess (not a rat's nest -- that's wires; maybe a can of worms) under the sink was caused by a previous owner who thought they knew what they were doing. It looks much saner now, and everything empties faster after reaming out 12m of drain. The temperature control on the first-floor shower is still broken; since all the works are inside the wall it may stay that way, unless their "old guy who knows everything" can identify the brand and point the way to a fix that doesn't involve tearing into the wall from the other side.

The best links are on Saturday this week -- these include guinea pig rental services in Switzerland and an an amazing Bohemian Rhapsody Flashmob. Although last Sunday's Busy Beaver article may be worth a look if your taste runs to Turing machines and insanely large numbers.

Notes & links, as usual )

selki: (TastyTreat)
selki ([personal profile] selki) wrote2025-09-21 12:08 pm

Fact and fiction

I listened this week to a non-fiction podcast episode about modern slavery in the big at-sea fish factories (2022). It has one happy ending but makes the point that this isn't just a few bad actors, but the way the business works right now, hence a $2 can of tuna. I was already aware of this, partly from novels that had opened my eyes a bit:
  • Ray Nayler's novel *The Mountain In the Sea* was great (it had my top Hugo vote that year). It had some tough stretches in it with a computer geek who gets enslaved.
  • Colin Cotterill's mystery *Granddad, There's a Head on the Beach* has a seaside Thai village and some police that are actively against investigation of part of a body that washes up. Overall more light-hearted, but a lot of dark undertones.
I'm slowly reading Sara Dykman's Bicycling with Butterflies (2021, non-fiction), which starts in Mexico and follows the migratory path of monarch butterflies (the only monarchs I'm for). I came across it when I was looking for a library copy of Barbara Kingsolver's *Flight Behavior* (2012 novel), which my book club was reading (I'd read it ~10 years ago for my library group). Both are absorbing, at least for the first half.

It Could Happen Here podcast's episodes  The Cult of Policing, Part 1 (and 2) from 2021 go into how cult-like the training and indoctrination is, in the US. Part 1 reminded me of the terrible start-up I worked at 2008-2013, with "we're your family now", mandatory fun (Ask a Manager column on that), etc. Part 2 talked about how police funding keeps taking more and more resources from community safety. 

andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2025-09-21 10:25 am
Entry tags:

Photo cross-post


We went up the hill. There were roses. Nobody knows why. Gideon has theories involving dead people.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

dolorosa_12: (japanese maple)
a million times a trillion more ([personal profile] dolorosa_12) wrote2025-09-21 02:29 pm

Head on mine, it keeps me heavy

It's been a slow, sleepy weekend, and I feel as if the time has somewhat run away from me. I started Saturday at the gym (my legs still ache), and then met Matthias in town for lunch with one of our friends from our PhD years, who was in the UK for a conference and some work with manuscripts. He lives in the US south and has a tenured job at a university there, so our conversation was somewhat grim at times, but it was nice to catch up and show him our town, and eat food truck food under clear skies in the courtyard garden of our favourite cafe/bar. It's always a bit odd to reconnect with people from my postgrad days who are firmly embedded in academia — it's like a reminder of a past life, when that was my whole world, too.

The post yesterday delivered me a postcard from [personal profile] peaked (amazing stationery choices, especially the stickers and washi tape), and she'd included a bunch of puzzles cut out from the newspaper, which was a nice touch! I've totally failed to complete them, but I imagine that will be for next week.

This morning, I went to the pool, and spent most of the morning slow-cooking an Indonesian curry, since Matthias and I will need to eat dinner very early in order to make it to a 7pm film at the community cinema (Sorry, Baby). The entire house smells of lemongrass, garlic and ginger, which I can't really complain about. I went into town for a quick wander and coffee, but have otherwise spent the rest of the day lounging around at home, with the athletics on in the background, dipping in and out of the internet, feeling somewhat unfocused. I did manage to complete Hannah Kaner's epic fantasy trilogy with Faithbreaker, which pretty much stuck the landing (although I felt it relied slightly too much on handwaving difficulties away by making one character ridiculously overpowerful), and I'm eyeing Tori Bovalino's adult fantasy debut, The Second Death of Locke, which Matthias received as the second book in the monthly SFF subscription programme run by our local independent bookshop. Bovalino is one of the few current writers of YA whose books I enjoy, so I'm keen to see what she's like writing for an adult readership.

The heating actually came on in the house for the first time this season. The hedgerows were bright with rosehips, rowan berries, blackberries and sloes on my walks to the gym, and the leaves on our cherry trees are yellowed and falling. I'm ready for summer to move on, and it seems that the landscape agrees with me.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-09-21 09:13 am

Frostflower and Thorn (Frostflower and Thorn, volume 1) by Phyllis Ann Karr



Frostflower can solve Thorn's pregnancy problem... but can the pair survive the attention of a fanatical farmer-priest?

Frostflower and Thorn (Frostflower and Thorn, volume 1) by Phyllis Ann Karr
alias_sqbr: the symbol pi on a pretty background (Default)
alias_sqbr ([personal profile] alias_sqbr) wrote2025-09-21 08:27 pm
Entry tags:
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
oursin ([personal profile] oursin) wrote2025-09-21 01:12 pm

(no subject)

Happy birthday, [personal profile] italiceyeball!
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
Humph ([personal profile] spiralsheep) wrote2025-09-21 11:35 am

In which lolibobs took an early bath

Read book 92. Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach, 1970, a fable, as the characters are literally seagulls, about how the Flock are inspired by joining an obsessive flying-and-starving cult that it would be insulting all round to describe as Buddhism-lite-for-libertarian-Christians. It gave me the feeling of a late 60s hippy cult trying to manifest, and very much Of Its Time as it was written 1967 ish (at last, a realistic use for the phrase "of its time"). Not my thing / out of five, but I can understand why some people find it interesting or useful in the same way people can find inspiration in bland self-help platitudes or undemanding mass-market spirituality, because the inspiration is contributed by the reader (or their Genius / Juno / whatever).

However, remember that the unexamined life is definitely worth living: look at dogs! Be honest, reincarnation as a domestic dog or a wild seagull? Dogs, innit.

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12


If binary choice reincarnation was compulsory?

View Answers

Wild seagull (Larus unspecifica)
2 (18.2%)

Domestic dog (Canis familiaris)
5 (45.5%)

Nope, not even for a humorous poll
4 (36.4%)

Abominations unto Nuggan?

View Answers

Seagulls!
1 (8.3%)

Lumping gull species together as "seagulls".
10 (83.3%)

Seagull-proofed bins. /typing with talons
2 (16.7%)

All sneaky chip thieves, actually.
4 (33.3%)

(Not dogs because even Nuggan would never!)
3 (25.0%)

chanter1944: an older house and surrounding autumn scenery (Wisconsin autumn: smells like fall)
Chanter ([personal profile] chanter1944) wrote2025-09-20 10:45 pm

stopover on the marsh

Made it back to Fond Du Lac County. Staying the night, then heading home, to hopefully be on the isthmus by noon tomorrow. I've showered (nothing wrong with anywhere we stayed, but I've been wanting to shower in surroundings where I know who else has been using the tub, the towels, etc), laundry is in, and good gosh, I'm tired.

More later. For now, ZZZZZ.
muccamukk: A figure on a dune holding a lamp. Text: "Your word is a lamp." (Christian: Your Word)
Muccamukk ([personal profile] muccamukk) wrote2025-09-20 08:25 pm
Entry tags:

A Poem

"Beatitudes for a Queerer Church" by Jay Hulme
Blessed are the outcasts;
the ostracized, the outsiders.

Blessed are the scared;
the scarred, the silent.

Blessed are the broken;
for they are not broken.

Blessed are the hated;
for they are not worthy of hate.

Blessed are those who try;
those who transform, who transition.

Blessed are the closeted;
God sees you shine anyway.

Blessed are the queers;
who love creation enough to live the truth of it,
despite a world that tells them they cannot.

And blessed are those
who believe themselves unworthy of blessing;
what inconceivable wonders you hold.
conuly: (Default)
conuly ([personal profile] conuly) wrote2025-09-20 08:58 pm

(no subject)



The camera angles work really hard to make the dogs look vicious and dangerous, but they can't fool me! Those are some happy, friendly puppers!
nikis_101: (Default)
Nikis ([personal profile] nikis_101) wrote2025-09-20 06:29 pm
Entry tags:

Journal 20/09/2025

 

Today was an uneventuful (and therefore) Good day, went t osee a generic horror movie (The conjuring 4) with my mom and really wnjoyed the cinema because it had few people and also the aesthetic was very art deco and quite polished, so i was mosto f the time feeling myself like in a retro movie. It’s my new fav cinema now.

I also ate some vegan fast food which i also enjyed… as always….

Finally i took a nap. Gosh, i really like my life when i’m on weekends XD

Ah, also i have a “Fancy perfume” problem, some months ago my grandma gift me a quite expensive perfume called Kriska Sonhos, I really didn’t think that uch about it back then but i have come tol ove the fragance and now I’m trying to get some cheap replacement without success. I can’t spend that mucho n a perfume but I don’t like how most perfumes smell and I really got acostumed to this one so i have sent a loto f time on thet fragantica website looking for something similar.  




musesfool: head!Six (and they have a plan)
i did it all for the robins ([personal profile] musesfool) wrote2025-09-20 06:36 pm

and that might have impact in the ninth

If you are interested in checking out Dungeon Crawler Carl but don't want to buy the first book (or the wait list at your library is very long), there's a webtoon version you can check out for free to see if it's up your alley. It's making me want to start a reread of the series even though I just read it last month. *hands*

*
shadowhive: (Queen Amidala)
shadowhive ([personal profile] shadowhive) wrote2025-09-20 10:28 pm

Like a mango with teeth

Yesterday was the release of the new Rebuild The Galaxy series so I ended up watching it and it was really fun. The Lego Star Wars shows are always really great and fun, and this was no exception. It was really cool to see Pirate Queen Amidala and to have the Skywalker family altogether which you really couldn’t have anywhere else. I watched all four eps (the first 3 in one go, the last one at night) and I’m glad I did.

At times though it did feel a little… product placements. Like there were the big K-2SO, droideka and most prominently Chewie. Plus there was the new Death Star set shown off. Having said that it did make me wish there was more than one set down specifically based on it. Not that I’d know what but it would be nice to have Jaxxon and pirate Queen Amidala.

I also did some more Silksong and the bell beast battle was so much harder than the first boss fight. I died so many times damnit but at least I beat it and now he’s my friend.

In the night, after debating what to do, I watched the new Ghost Files which was fun, though so funny to have Ryan say daddy so often. (And even as he said it he knew it would be clipped like crazy)

This morning I had a delivery, which ended up being the last issue of Dungeons And Dragons Adventurer. Now I’ll have to sort them out (along with the many MANY dice sets). I wish I was able to use the stuff in them though.

Today was the trip out so off I went to town. I made a few stops, including getting a pumpkin kit and bat bag from the works, some cute pins from a Pokémon card shop (that I didn’t know was even there??) and picking up a copy of SFX. I did go in B and M and it’s infuriating that it has two whole aisles of Christmas stuff and only half of one for Halloween. What the fuck is the world coming to?? I did see they had void series stranger things figures, but just Hopper and Eleven. (Does anyone know if there’s a list of the figures? I can’t seem to find one and wanna know if there’s one of my boys to hunt down?) The bm site said they have other Stranger Things stuff but I didn’t see them alas.

It’s sad that town only has one place that has new dvds and blu rays, Asda, which is utterly useless. I didn’t expect there to have Clown In A Cornfield but it’s still sad they didn’t.

I did manage to go in the art gallery which was nice. I didn’t know there were two more floors and one is impressively high ceilinged with an exhibit called shelter which was mostly nice. There’s even tours of it so might look into them. There was also the exhibit mentioned in the fest which was so random, it included metal sculptures and even prosthetic wound make up.

And ahh I looked to see about the tours and they’re doing some Halloween crafts! To make lil bats and pumpkin art.

(Also there’s a scare maze coming to town too which I didn’t know would be a thing there?)

The trailers for today’s stuff were mostly kids stuff (bar the last two) but most did look pretty good.
The Cat In The Hat: This looks like it’ll be really fun, it’s bright and colourful and I feel I’ll definitely see this.
SpongeBob: I had heard there was a SpongeBob film coming. I’ve not seen any SpongeBob stuff in ages but this feels like I remember it.
Zootopia 2: looks like it could be fun, I do really enjoy the first one. I have been guilty of not watching Disney stuff in cinemas cause it comes to Disney + but with the pass I might see it.
Pets On A Train: I’d not heard of this one but it did look pretty good, with a train being hijacked and the titular pets trying to stop it.
Night Of The Zoopocalypse: I’d seen a poster of this and was curious. It does look pretty good though, with something turning zoo animals into zombie like things.
Hamilton: Yeah that surprised me to be there too. Apparently it’s getting a cinema release, with a reunion of the cast too? I’ve never seen it personally but if there’s any Hamilton enjoyers look out for it
The Golden Spurtle: this is a documentary about the world porridge making contest. Yeah I didn’t know this was a thing either

Bad Guys 2 was a lot of fun so I’m glad I got to see it cause I didn’t expect to. I saw the first film on tv earlier in the year and that was fun and this one was too. (Ok I mostly went for Mr Wolf, but have you seen him?) It’s mostly a fun caper film though the last part is set in space cause of a wild plan (using mcguffinite to make a magnet for gold and attaching it to a strangely empty space station to steal all the worlds gold). The last scene did feel like set up for a sequel (as did the mid credits scene) so I do hope it gets one.

Also the art style is so great, it’s bright and pretty and the effects look so great. Plus everyone just bounced off each other so well, you can tell they had a fun time.

After that was Thunderbirds which ahh! Thunderbirds was a show I grew up with as a kid (which, of course was a rerun since it originally came out in 1965). I dunno if non-uk people know of it, but it’s about a group called International Rescue who save people from various disasters. And it’s all done with puppets and model work. The models are absolutely incredible and still hold up even all these years later.

This was a 4K re-release of two episodes, Trapped In The Sky and Terror In New York City. The first makes sense cause it’s the first ep of the show, the second is the 4th ep.

Trapped In The Sky is about a plane (the very cool looking Fireflash) that has a bomb in its landing gear which means it can’t land. The rescue here really shows off how awesome the model work is, from the Fireflash itself to all the airport rescue vehicles to the radio controlled things used to help it land.

It is funny though that the Fireflash is able to fly for 6 months because of its atomic reactor… but that same reactor means the people on board would get hit by a fatal dose of radiation in a matter of hours if not serviced, which seems like a pretty big design flaw!

The second ep has the navy shoot down one of the Thunderbirds (cause it didn’t even bother to give the unidentified craft a chance to identify itself!) which means it’s unable to be used for the main rescue. Said rescue is certainly a crazy one. There’s redevelopment in New York and they have decided to move the Empire State Building. (Yep move the whole thing in one go) naturally it goes badly due to underground streams causing subsidence, trapping two news crew as the whole building collapses, rending the whole thing moot.

I do wonder if this was chosen cause it gave thunderbird 4 a chance to shine (which didn’t happen too often!) though it could be that it was done because it had a lot of awesome model work again. As bizarre a concept as it is, it was all incredible well done and you have to admit it’s an original idea.

It has made ime wanna get the fancy boxset of the series that’s coming later in the year, and to find something with cutaways if the ships/locations. I feel I had one as a kid but who knows where it might be.

As I was leaving they were setting up a new promo thing for the Black Phone 2, which looked like the phone booth from the trailer, which is pretty cool. I’ll have to get a pic when I next go. Alas I missed the train by 2 minutes, but cause everything was shut (and it was starting to rain) I just stayed at the station and read some of the SFX reviews.