cimorene: The words "DISTANT GIBBERING" hand lettered in serif capitals (sinister)
[personal profile] cimorene
After my first driving lesson with a clutch and an expert instructor, I felt cautiously optimistic and a bit excited. I knew I was going to need a lot of practice for the mechanical habits, but I was having fun.

After the first lesson with the driving simulator I kind of feel like I did terrible. I don't say this is a tone of despair, because I know it's partly the fault of the simulator, among other things, but I did get quite annoyed at myself.

I also felt like I needed more repetition of just starting, slowing and stopping, and shifting gear before I tried combining them too quickly the way the simulator was asking. I'd only driven half an hour before the lesson started and was not ready yet to shift into 3rd, floor it to reach 50 kph as quickly as possible, then immediately shift to 2nd and brake to slow while looking over my shoulder for a left turn. This is supposed to be a driving simulator, not a street chase video game! Of course I forgot the turn signal one time and released the clutch too fast another! Also, why would you ever go to 3rd gear and 50 kph in a dense urban environment for less than a block? Why couldn't you practice those skills in a realistic scenario? Like a highway?

But anyway, the point is: there are a fixed number of driving lessons included in this course, so it might not be possible to practice each skill more before moving on. And I've always been terrible at video games. And sports. And coordination, if you don't mean the kind of fine control used for art. Though in retrospect, I did forget to take my methylphenidate first, and it should statistically make a significant increase in how safely I drive.

Predator: Black, White & Blood #1

Jul. 19th, 2025 11:14 pm
shakalooloo: (Dragonborn)
[personal profile] shakalooloo posting in [community profile] scans_daily
Of course, since Predator is very famous for a certain colour of blood that it bleeds, that gives this comic the licence to have black, white, red AND green colouring!

This series is an anthology, leading with a multi-part story set in Australia. There's also a completely nutso story about a woad-covered Celt taking on a Predator that weirdly ends up going very The Last Knight.

The third story, a third of which is under the cut, involves the rather genius idea of Predator going to a gun show.

Now, of the holy trinity - Alien, Terminator and Predator - I must confess that the last of the three is my favourite, even though it is objectively the least good. But even I, a moderate Predator fan, have to roll my eyes whenever someone tries to paint it as any sort of 'honourable'...




Read more... )

Bad Cows

Jul. 19th, 2025 02:31 pm
ranunculus: (Default)
[personal profile] ranunculus
Yesterday evening I got a call from Marika and Rosemary.  "Do the neighbors have cows?"  No,  they don't.  Once again most of the herd was out. They had forced their way though the very same hole as they had before, breaking all the wire we installed.   I called Kerri, Cody's wife then jumped in the Gator and zipped down to the fence.  I got around a big bunch of cows that were still right near the boundary and pushed them out the gate and back onto our place. 
In the Gator I had a partial roll of barbed wire. While Kerri was coming up the steep driveway to Rudy's, I began rolling out barbed wire.  Three new strands of it across the broken area.  Once that was in place, and the rest of the cows were in, we began weaving more strands of barbed wire vertically. They won't break that stuff!  We worked long after full dark to reinforce the fence with all the cows right there watching us.  As I left Kerri suggested I move the herd up the hill away from that particular spot.  It was hard getting them going but eventually the whole bunch started up the hill.  Chena helped by barking enthusiastically. She clearly was watching me carefully, and after a few minutes she voluntarily trotted back around a slow group and got them moving. I called her off as soon as they moved and told her what a good girl she was.  After a few forays to move various cows, I felt confident enough to send her out to bark, and then call her back to the Gator.  She was SO proud of herself!  I'm delighted to have a dog who has figured out that her job is to help move cows, but ONLY when asked.  There were a couple of times this summer when she tried to move the cows away from the house and got yelled at. It was clear last night that she absolutely understood the difference between working for me, and not chasing stock when she wasn't "working".  I don't think she will ever be more than mildly helpful, but as is often the case I'm awed by what instinct combined with intelligence produces. 
Today I went back down to the fence and continued fixing it up. After a while Kerri showed up and together we got Rudy's whole line fixed up.  We added another strand of barbed wire all the way to the south corner, plus a lot of vertical stays.  The fence needs some more t-posts but it should do for now.

garden update

Jul. 19th, 2025 01:12 pm
thistleingrey: (Default)
[personal profile] thistleingrey
The plants that the landscaper placed too close to a fence and that I was too ignorant to gainsay have been deformed variously for neighborly relations, now that those plants are tall enough to peek over. Leaving the resulting twigs where foot traffic would otherwise result in winter mud has been effective, so far. Tiny housemate considers it her duty to pull them apart somewhat, to the extent that she complains if I don't toss the cut branches her way. She's learned not to linger over the ones whose bark oils are dog-unfriendly, and whenever I use my thumbnails to strip drying bark, she complains again: just toss the stick!

The persimmon tree grew so much in response to the unusually wet spring that several branches became long and heavy by midsummer, apt to break---more lopping.

Most plants my height or shorter have been drifting towards sere yellow-brown, except the peony, which almost chose dormancy this year and has put up a hand-height of leaves. Self-seeded dill shoots have appeared again, thanks to the ants. Self-seeded California poppy has dried out for the season. Half the hydrangeas are the smallest they've been so far, between drowning in oxalis over winter and being too shaded by other plants since spring; the other half look much as they did last year. A neighbor's semi-myrtle, which smells similar to eucalyptus whenever I trim the overhang from my side of our fence, has sent up shoots more than a meter into my yard, including beneath one hydrangea. The latter may not last, since I try not to water that corner as a result.

The wisteria stub nudged a handful of green vines upwards, which tiny housemate tried showing me, then eating. (The eating was thwarted.) Last year, with a drier preceding winter, the wisteria stub was quiet. My struggles to find and discard wisteria seed pods before tiny housemate could poison herself were the prior fall, when she was a puppy. I suspect she was only showing me a new thing in the yard, not remembering the seed pods, but even hey-look is pretty cool from a dog when it's not something the dog has caused.

Secret Society of Super-villains #2

Jul. 19th, 2025 07:28 pm
iamrman: (Bon Clay)
[personal profile] iamrman posting in [community profile] scans_daily

Writers: Gerry Conway and David Anthony Kraft

Pencils: Pablo Marcos

Inks: Bob Smith


The Secret Society of Super-villains add a confused Golden Age hero to their number.


Read more... )

cimorene: Illustration from The Cat in the Hat Comes Back showing a pink-frosted layer cake on a plate being cut into with a fork (dessert)
[personal profile] cimorene
Something I read recently - I think a vintage women's magazine from the 20s, but I'm not positive - mentioned "eggs Florentine". I did a quick web search, not having heard of this before, and learned that this, also called a Florentine omelette, is an omelette with cheese (traditionally swiss or gruyere) and spinach filling. Dishes named "Florentine" often have spinach in them, apparently. I found a recipe to try, because I love spinach dishes, and we had it for dinner today with bread rolls. I made the filling with pepper gouda and a bit of parmesan because that's the cheese we had, and it came out great!

Now Wax is baking an almond layer cake with lemon curd buttercream because her favorite aunt is coming to stay on Monday. She asked me what kind of cake, and almond layer cake with vanilla was my suggestion. I subsequently remembered I've been craving carrot cake and she said she'd make one of those too, but we'll have to buy cream cheese first.

Rom: Spaceknight #22

Jul. 19th, 2025 04:29 pm
iamrman: (Sogeking)
[personal profile] iamrman posting in [community profile] scans_daily

Plot: Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema

Script: Bill Mantlo

Pencils: Sal Buscema

Inks: Joe Sinnott


Rom and the Torpedo team-up to take on the Dire Wraith Rocketeers.


Read more... )

Robin II #2

Jul. 19th, 2025 02:19 pm
iamrman: (Buggy)
[personal profile] iamrman posting in [community profile] scans_daily

Writer: Chuck Dixon

Pencils: Tom Lyle

Inks: Bob Smith


Just what is the Joker planning? Robin certainly doesn’t know.


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(no subject)

Jul. 19th, 2025 01:55 pm
mabiana: (Default)
[personal profile] mabiana
I cannot decide whether I'm tired enough to actually attempt to nap or whether to do something when I'm feeling too sleepy to decide what I want to do, so I shall babble at you. ;-)

Yesterday at work, we had to attend two hours mandatory explanation of the current data protection laws. It wasn't helped that the lecture had actually been intended for supervisors only who were then supposed to instruct those at the bottom, and our head of department had decided to just have everyone attend at once, much to the bafflement of the person from outside the institution faced with 40 instead of 15 people in the virtual meeting. It was very lucky it was at least online. Not that I did anything but intently listen, of course. Particularly to the stuff totally above my paygrade. So, it was certainly not during those two hours of my life that I googled the number who keeps calling my landline and my cell phone after all. And to my surprise found that it was indeed already known for aggressive advertising. So, not a person who knows me, but someone had apparently sold both my numbers at once. Not that much better, but I can now stop wondering if it is my sister-in-law suddenly remembering my existence after all (possibly because I stubbornly keep sending Christmas and only recently birthday cards into the silence, as I am not going to be the one who cuts the relation for good Period, or poked at by one of the aunts). Good I googled after all, at some point I might have felt obliged to answer in case it is her. Now that number is blocked.

Quite a while ago I had preordered a book on amazon, before I had started to order books in German on Thalia. I was quite baffled last Saturday when I saw someone posting on Tumblr about just having received the book that is only supposed to be published next week, and went to check - amazon still only offered preorders, Thalia already had listed it as available for mail orders. I have noticed that orders from Thalia are actually sometimes fulfilled by wholesale trader Zeitfracht, so I can see how they could be quicker with something newly published. I waited until Monday, hoping my order would be sent with only a few days delay, but no - and as I am impatient fangirl I ordered at Thalia on Tuesday and had my book on Thursday night. I had actually forgotten to cancel the amazon order which I meant to do once I got confirmation of the other copy being mailed, and expected it would now be too late - but no, no problem, not even the thing with the later email rejection or confirmation, order just gone right away. I see that now they say they could deliver on Tuesday, but it would still be a preorder. Interesting. I shall investigate further with other things to come out soon.

The book now gotten quicker is Die Auferstehung by bestselling author Andreas Eschbach, who wrote a crime novel with the Die Drei Fragezeichen/The Three Investigators characters, but at a much later point in their life. As the two and counting graphic novels who also chose that motif he has them be estranged for decades, but thankfully his book is not as dark as the graphic novels and doesn't do the cliffhanger endings they apparently will keep on having (I will in all likelihood faithfully keep buying them, but I'm not sure I would if it weren't about them, because they really are gloomy and I am not a fan of the cliffhanger), but has an actual ending. I started yesterday afternoon and finished this morning and if I hadn't been keen on being early at the pool for minimal swimming crowd (or was still younger ;-) ) I'd probably have read it in one go. So, obviously, I liked it and wanted to know how it ends and was very invested in them finally working together again already instead of trying to solve the same case solo. Very much appreciate that they hadn't just been aged up to be somewhat older, but where actually my current age with the graying hair and all. And yet, Aunt Mathilda is still alive, yay. ;-) I can't say this really is where I see the characters going with their futures (well, acually, I see them living happily ever after bonded in eternal friendship as professional private investigators ;-) ), but interesting take that I thoroughly enjoyed and that I at least intend to read again at one point.

In other news, while I was lying on the balcony with my book yesterday and took a little break to admire my petunia, I noticed they had lice. Two different kinds of them. And ants herding them. Booo.

Weekly Chat

Jul. 19th, 2025 01:57 pm
dancing_serpent: (Photos - tea cup & green leaves)
[personal profile] dancing_serpent posting in [community profile] c_ent
The weekly chat posts are intended for just that, chatting among each other. What are you currently watching? Reading? What actor/idol are you currently following? What are you looking forward to? Are you busy writing, creating art? Or did you have no time at all for anything, and are bemoaning that fact?

Whatever it is, talk to us about it here. Tell us what you liked or didn't like, and if you want to talk about spoilery things, please hide them under either of these codes:
or

Farewell: Tess Williams

Jul. 19th, 2025 07:38 pm
fred_mouse: line drawing of a ladybug with love-heart shaped balloons (ladybug)
[personal profile] fred_mouse

I have been informed that Tess Williams passed away earlier this week.

Tess was a family friend*, a valued member of the local fannish community, and a gifted writer. I thoroughly recommend their books Map of Power and Sea As Mirror if you can get hold of them.

They will be missed.

*in this case, part of my mother's extended social crowd in my teenage years.

Richard Dragon: Kung Fu #9

Jul. 19th, 2025 12:06 pm
iamrman: (Marin)
[personal profile] iamrman posting in [community profile] scans_daily

Writer: Dennis O’Neil

Pencils and inks: Ric Estrada


Richard Dragon and his supporting cast are asked to investigate reports of a mantis-man threatening the tourist trade in the Caribbean.


Read more... )

University Library

Jul. 19th, 2025 03:21 pm
fred_mouse: black and white version of WA institute of technology logo (university)
[personal profile] fred_mouse
One of the weirdnesses about being on the current campus is that while I've never studied here, I have a long history of being here.

In either 1980 or 1982 (probably the latter, but it doesn't quite add up) my mother was doing a Post-Grad Dip to convert from being a math teacher to a school psych. For reasons I either didn't know or have forgotten, I would be collected from school one day a week by one of the other students, and taken to campus. There, in theory, I was in the care of P--a friend of my mother's--who was a/the computer tech in what was then the psych building. I certainly hung out in their workshop a lot, learning a stack about computer games, and a small amount about other computer based skills.

I also hung out in two other spots. The first of these is the courtyard of the psych building, which has a water feature and what are now some very well developed trees. I went and had lunch there a couple of weeks ago and got a bit teary, because I lost track of P (who was incredibly important later on) and I suspect at this point they have passed on and I'll never actually get to have some of the conversations I regret not having. (Also, that there is a significant chance that the next I hear about my mother will be their funeral; or worse, post that).

The second was the library. Seven floors, of which I think five were accessible to non-librarians at that time. I used to wander around and find things to read. And books for doing my (primary school) assignments. It was musty and dusty and full of books and absolutely heaven for a book minded child. It continued to be like that for future encounters, including during my undergraduate years, where sometimes the journals I needed were not available at any of the libraries of the university I was enrolled at (there were, if I remember correctly, four libraries I used regularly which were 'on campus' if one counts the Med library as campus) and so I trekked elsewhere.

In the last few years, it has been significantly upgraded, remodelled and modernised. To the point that there are almost no books on floors 3-7. There is a locked area full of compactus on floor 2, as well as a set of borrowable books in an accessible space. The ones in the compactus have to be requested; so far my experience is that it takes 2-3 hours for them to become available, so a quick look can't happen (unless one is lucky and the book one wants is available in ebook, which is, I gather, between 80 and 90% of the collection). I haven't had a good look at the readily available for borrow ones, but it is a smaller area than the smallest suburban library I've been in. So, no just wandering and finding a book.

Except! They have fiction books scattered in sections over most of the floors. And these are borrowable on an honour system. You don't have to do anything to borrow them except pick them up and walk out with them. They aren't catalogued. It is so neat an idea that I've borrowed two (because I ended up in the library for a couple of hours for nothing else to do, so I borrowed a second before I'd finished the first).

Saturday plans

Jul. 19th, 2025 02:55 pm
fred_mouse: top down view of hot cup of coffee with 'friday!' written over the top (coffee)
[personal profile] fred_mouse

Original plans for today: get brunch (with Youngest and Artisanat), and go past the place that does the good peanut butter on the way home. Achieved! We went to 'The Little Olive'* in, hmm, probably-Melville. They had GF spinach and ricotta rolls, so that was breakfast. They also have an interesting range of sweets, so we got two to share between us. Stopped at Kardinya to get peanut butter; also looked for the good muesli bars in Coles (assumption: they have been discontinued) and got some alternatives; went to the UK Lolly Shop and got rhubarb and custard hard lollies.

And then home. Where my goal for the afternoon is not to waste time on the internet. Being on the internet is fine, just not faffing around. So far I've watched about an hour and a half on Obsidian, note-taking, and related topics while progressing the hat I'm knitting; read some of Room With A View (which I continue to be underwhelmed by) and am now closing old DW tabs (skimming, but not replying) -- there are over 200, because I open what I don't have time to read in the morning, and plan to come back 'later'.

Plans for the evening are date night, which will involve finding something I want to cook. Other wishlist items are cooking stock paste, and making bikkies. Also tidying the bedroom enough that the dog has somewhere to lie down while visiting.

* given I'm now at uni on Fridays, Saturday is the new Friday, and Coffee Fridays happen when they happen. This is the first new to us cafe in some time (not counting Albany, because we didn't actually end up doing brunch).

all arms and legs

Jul. 18th, 2025 08:12 pm
musesfool: Wonder Woman against a backdrop of flames (walk through the fire)
[personal profile] musesfool
I mentioned I've been reading a bunch of DCU/PJO crossovers, and mostly I like it when nobody is related to the Waynes and no Waynes are secretly demigods and it's just Percy et al in Gotham and rolling with their weirdness (or vice versa, I guess, but I haven't seen any like that yet), though I have enjoyed those other types. For me, the big key to making the crossover work, aside from the fact that I want it to so I'm primed for it (i.e., buy the premise, buy the joke), is how Wonder Woman is handled (and to a much lesser extent, Wonder Girl), even more so than Aquaman and Atlantis.

Like, for me as a reader, you can't pretend that the Batfamily is totally ignorant of the Greek pantheon or demigods if you've got Diana around. And I realize that some folks are basing their Batfamily stuff on other people's fic (I'm not making that call - some of them state it outright in their notes), which may not contain any info on Wonder Woman or the Amazons etc. but Wonder Woman is not an obscure superhero! Even if you ignore the retcon that she's a daughter of Zeus (and you should! Even the comics have walked that back, though I can see why it might be interesting to work into this kind of crossover), she was made of clay and had life breathed into her by Greek goddesses.

I mean, it complicates things to some degree, because where was she during all of Percy's adventures, but 1. she was in space/another universe etc., or 2. she'd been stripped of her powers for trying to help, or 3. she was back on Themyscira, and unaware, or, or, or... And those are just off the top of my head. Mostly I've seen Percy and friends angry that she didn't participate and that's a fine way to go, but like, I feel like something has to be said, even if just in passing, unless it's set very very early in Batman's career and he hasn't met her/she isn't public yet. And the ones I've found so far are not set in that timeframe, because the fun of the crossover is having all the kids interacting with each other and with Bruce.

Anyway, I'm always interested in how other people make crossovers work, because for me, skipping over most of the nitty-gritty of trying to make incompatible worlds/magical systems etc. work together is the way to go - choose one or two details to set the vibe and handwave the inconsistencies.

***
umadoshi: (Zhu Yilong 04)
[personal profile] umadoshi
On Bluesky, Wenella reports that "Dongjj Rescue, starring Zhu Yilong, Ni Ni, and Leo Wu, will be released in the US on Aug 22, 2025. The film will be released in mainland China on Aug 8." Time to start haunting the Cineplex site in hopes of Canadian showtimes!

I took today off in hopes of getting a bit more sleep (done, although not an impressive amount) and actually starting in on my next manga rewrite. I have just over a couple of hours before I need to venture out, so...we'll see how the latter goes in practice.

I can't remember if I've mentioned here that almost two months ago, I concluded that I'm going to sell my poor basically-unused etrike. In case I haven't, here's the gist )

Anyway, this comes to mind because for once I have a little venture that would, in fact, be perfect for taking the trike if I were at all in the habit of/comfortable with using it. Ah, well.

In related news, at least we're not under a heat warning anymore, unlike the last few days. (It's still currently 22°C and humid as hell, resulting in a 30°C humidex, and it's supposed to be a couple degrees warmer later this afternoon. But it's still an improvement.)

Mister Miracle #16

Jul. 18th, 2025 02:30 pm
iamrman: (Bon Clay)
[personal profile] iamrman posting in [community profile] scans_daily

Words and pencils: Jack Kirby

Inks: Mike Royer


Shilo Norman takes on the insect hoards of Professor Egg. (Unfortunately, not another form of Egg-Fu.)


Read more... )

Book Review: The Clansman

Jul. 18th, 2025 07:58 am
osprey_archer: (books)
[personal profile] osprey_archer
As I have mentioned previously, I’ve been going through the books I selected from my grandmother’s bookshelves after she died. At the back of these bookshelves, among the hodgepodge of books Grandma inherited from her aunts and uncles (including early editions of Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea, and you’d better believe I snapped those up), I found a copy of Thomas Dixon Jr.’s 1905 novel The Clansman.

At the time, I was still studying history in grad school, focusing on American history around 1900, and this just happens to be one of the most influential books in the time period - perhaps in all of American history. It was a historical romance (in both the old and new senses) which caught the attention of filmmaker D. W. Griffith, who adapted it into the 1915 blockbuster Birth of a Nation, which led to the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan.

So of course I took the book, but what with one thing and another I haven’t gotten around to reading it till now. In the intervening period I’ve read a lot of other books from the time period, which helps put it better in context.

In particular, it helps put into context just how racist Dixon was. He’s not merely reflecting the prevailing attitudes of his era (as most writers do, whether they want to or not) but actively arguing that the prevailing attitudes of one of the most racist eras in American history aren’t racist enough.

It would therefore be pleasant to report that Dixon is also a terrible writer, like Nikolai Chernyshevsky who wrote What Is To Be Done?, another book that inspired deadly political cosplay on a vast scale. (Although it occurs to me that I haven’t actually read Chernyshevsky, and in fact may have received this opinion from people who only read it in translation.) But stylistically Dixon is pretty similar to other popular historical romances of the time period. His tale is slower-paced than an adventure story would be nowadays, but in its own literary context it zips along. You can see why a film director would find it attractive. Plenty of incident, and two love stories for the price of one!

This is especially true since Dixon, a devil quoting scripture, presents his story as a variation of that old American favorite, indeed that foundational American myth, that blockbuster gold of plucky underdogs rebelling against tyranny. American colonists against the British, William Tell against the Austrians, Rebel Alliance against the Empire; or (Dixon’s favorite analogy) Scottish Covenanters worshipping in the hills rather than bow to the despotic English demand that they accept the established church.

Dixon’s Southerners are descendants of those Covenanters, fueled by that self-same love of freedom. Like their forebears, they refuse to bow down to the demands of the despotic conquering power, but form a heroic resistance (the Ku Klux Klan by way of les Amis de l’ABC) to the horrors of racial equality visited upon the South by the cruelty of a vengeful United States Congress.

In particular, this policy of racial equality is driven by Senator Stoneman, Dixon’s Thaddeus Stevens expy. In Stoneman, Dixon achieves a surprisingly complex character: a man kindly, even generous, in his personal life, but so politically so driven by his ideals that he will adopt any policy that seems to further those ideals, no matter how terrible the results on the ground.

This is interesting. You’ve got shades here of the French Revolution, idealistic leaders driven by lovely visions of freedom and equality which somehow end in rivers of blood from the guillotine. I was genuinely surprised that Dixon managed to achieve such a multifaceted view of his arch-enemy.

Except it turns out that Stoneman’s apparent complexity is completely accidental: in the last few pages, it’s revealed that Stoneman never cared about racial equality at all! After a Southern raid during the Civil War destroyed Stoneman’s Pennsylvania factories, he was consumed by the bitter desire for vengeance, and racial equality was his weapon of choice against the prostrate Southern people.

This is a very interesting book on what you might call an anthropological level, as a document of a certain kind of southern viewpoint around 1900. It’s also interesting as a piece of historiography, as Dixon has to thread a very fine needle to argue that the South did no wrong in seceding, but having lost is now VERY loyal and has learned to love the noble Abraham Lincoln who by the way DEFINITELY would have been nicer to the South than Congress was, but as Congress WAS mean the South HAD to break the laws, and this definitely doesn’t undermine the fact that the South is now very, very loyal. Very!

And you could undoubtedly write an excellent paper about The Clansman as a (mis)use of classic tropes of resistance to tyranny. For goodness sake, Dixon even throws in a Sydney Carton scene. It’s a fantastic example of how you can keep the outward form of a kind of story intact while completely reversing the meaning.

But for obvious reasons I cannot recommend it as light and agreeable reading.

Ka-Zar #7

Jul. 18th, 2025 12:35 pm
iamrman: (Squirrel Girl)
[personal profile] iamrman posting in [community profile] scans_daily

Writer: Mark Waid

Pencils: Andy Kubert

Inks: Jesse Delperdang


The Plunderer's goons are on the hunt for Shanna.


Read more... )

Justice League of America #254

Jul. 18th, 2025 10:30 am
iamrman: (Franky)
[personal profile] iamrman posting in [community profile] scans_daily

Writer: Gerry Conway

Pencils: Luke McDonnell

Inks: Bill Wray


Despero has defeated the veteran heroes, so it comes down to the rookies to save the day.


Read more... )

Temperature Flash fic reveals

Jul. 17th, 2025 10:44 pm
sholio: Text: "Age shall not weary her, nor custom stale her infinite squee" (Infinite Squee)
[personal profile] sholio
Terrible Temperature Flash authors were revealed this evening, and I wrote two not at all predictable fics:

A Touch of Warmth (Biggles books, Biggles/EvS, 1000 words)
This was entirely for the mental image of Erich wrapping his coat around a chilled Biggles. ♥

Taking the Heat (Babylon 5, Vir & Londo gen, 2500 wds)
Londo gets heatstroke on Centauri Prime. This was a treat for the h/c of it all.

(no subject)

Jul. 17th, 2025 09:16 pm
ranunculus: (Default)
[personal profile] ranunculus
The chain saw sharpener is now up with an extension cord run through the carport rafters to power it.  Tomorrow I'll do my best to figure out how to actually use the darn thing.  I have one chain that is so dull that it is a perfect practice piece.  Anything I do to it should help.  Once I get it figured out there is a big stack of dull chains to do, at least 10. 

Yesterday the Gator got half a bath.  The entire front got washed, the windshield was carefully washed and removed for the rest of the summer.   The plexiglass windshield is so prone to scratches that I really can't clean it regularly.  In the winter the windshield makes a huge difference, it is SO much warmer. In the summer it is completely unnecessary.  I need to find a sheet to wrap it in so it doesn't get dirty or scratched...

The same two calves that got out on Wachs place, got into my horse pasture this late afternoon.  They had been there before.  I was puzzled because in other places they are pretty respectful of the electric fence, but not that one.  I tightened up a wire and was checking one last thing when I found the problem.  Last winter while I was working on the fence I hooked two gate handles, not into the plate that transfers power to the line, but into the plastic insulator that holds that plate. That left the fence tape tight, but not electrified, which is great when you are working on the fence. It is also nice to turn off the fence once the cows are gone and the horse is in another pasture.   In my pre-cow fence check somehow I remembered to move the top wire, but missed moving the lower handle.  Oops.  Hopefully that will encourage those two calves to stay on the correct side of the fence. 

Leviathan anime

Jul. 17th, 2025 06:36 pm
psocoptera: ink drawing of celtic knot (Default)
[personal profile] psocoptera
Somehow I managed to sneak in an entire 12 episodes of television - six hours!! Overall I'm glad I watched it, they did a reasonable job with it, and I liked some of their choices more than others. Behind the cut, a longer review with major spoilers for both the adaptation and the original book series.

Read more... )

after the money's gone

Jul. 17th, 2025 08:45 pm
musesfool: tasty cosmopolitans (we'll laugh and we'll toast to nothing)
[personal profile] musesfool
I made this fancy lemonade with what I learned from [personal profile] minoanmiss's tags is called oleo saccharum, which is sugar syrup made with the oils in the citrus peels. I had 8 lemons, and some leftover frozen strawberries and blueberries, so I let the berries defrost in the fridge overnight and then this morning I did all the juicing and the dicing and then let it sit for several hours (5, I think?) before straining the syrup and adding the juice etc. It's very good, though I need to try it with lemons only, I think, and maybe less sugar. Because I do like my lemonade on the tarter side.

Anyway! I dug out my potato masher and my citrus reamer with carafe for this, so it was nice to be able to use them. I do kind of wish I had a food mill but I've never been able to justify the expense to myself - I used a large fine mesh strainer and it worked fine.

In other news, I watched the most recent season of GBBO and I LOVED EVERYONE IN THE TENT, but especially Dylan! Nelly! Gill! and Georgie! spoilers, I guess ) And Allison is so great. I hope she sticks with the show for a long time.

*

(no subject)

Jul. 17th, 2025 06:49 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
My 4-year-old transitioned to a big-kid bed more than six months ago. Since the switch, every time he wakes up (at night, super early in the morning, etc.), he comes into our room needing us (and waking us up). Sometimes he is crying because he is scared, but often it just feels like an automatic thing he’s doing. We always march him back to his room and don’t let him get in bed with us. We have tried what feels like everything: a reward chart for a bigger reward he gets to pick, a small reward each day he stays in his room, a light that changes color when he can come out of his room, talks at times other than when we’re dealing with it in the moment about staying in his room, some books about being afraid of the dark, a special box of toys to play with when he wakes up, a fun galaxy light, a Yoto he can listen to … nothing has worked.

I don’t want to lock him in for a variety of reasons. I feel like we’re almost back in the baby stages of being woken up at night! I was hoping it was just a phase we’d get through, but it’s really dragging on at this point. He’s also been tired during the day so he’s not getting enough sleep. Any ideas?

—Mom in the Land of 10,000 Yawns


Read more... )
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija


Kelly Ramsey became a hotshot - the so-called Special Forces of firefighting - with three strikes against her. She's a woman on an otherwise all-male crew, a small woman dealing with equipment much too big for her, and 36 years old when most of the men are in their early 20s. If that's not enough, it's 2020 - the start of the pandemic - and California is having a record fire year, with GIGAFIRES that burn more than ONE MILLION acres. At one point her own hometown burns down.

The memoir tells the story of her two seasons with the Rowdy River Hotshots, her relationship with her awful fiance (also a firefighter, on a different crew), her relationship with her alcoholic homeless father, and a general memoir of her life. I'd say about three-fifths of the book is about the hotshots, and two-fifths are her fiance/her father/her life up to that point.

You will be unsurprised to hear that I was WAY more interested in the hotshots than in her personal life. The fiance was loosely relevant to her time with the hotshots (he was jealous of both the male hotshots and of her job itself), and her alcoholic father and her history of impulsive sexual relationships was relevant to her personality, but you could have cut all of that by about 75% and still gotten the point.

All the firefighting material is really interesting, and Ramsey does an impressively good job of not only vividly depicting hotshot culture, but also differentiating 19 male firefighters. I had a good idea of what all of them were like and knew who she meant whenever she mentioned one, and that is not easy. You get a very good idea of both the technique and sheer physical effort it takes to fight fires, along with plenty of info on fire behavior and the history of fire in California. (She does not neglect either climate change or the indigenous use of fire.)

This feels like an incredibly honest book. Ramsey doesn't gloss over how gross and embarrassing things get when no one's bathed for weeks, you've been slogging through powdery ash the whole time, there's no toilets, and you're the only one who menstruates. She depicts not only the struggle of trying to keep up with a bunch of younger, stronger, macho guys, but how desperate she is to be accepted by them as one of the guys and how this causes problems when another woman joins the crew - a woman who openly points out that flawed men are welcomed while every mistake she makes is taken as a sign that women can't do the job.

I caught myself wishing that Ramsey hadn't had an affair with one of her crew mates as many readers will think "Yep, that's what happens when women get on crews," and then realizing that I hadn't thought that about the man who had the affair with her. Even I blamed Ramsey and not the equally culpable dude!

Ramsey reminded me at times of Amy Dunn's vicious description of the "cool girl" in Gone Girl, but to her credit, she's aware that this is a persona she adopted to please men and fill the void left by her alcoholic dad. Thankfully, there's a lot more to the book than that.

The Phone Rang

Jul. 17th, 2025 02:08 pm
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[personal profile] ranunculus
The phone rang at 7am yesterday morning.   It was our neighbor Mr Wachs (pronounced "wax"), reporting that the cows were out. I called Cody.  A few minutes later Cody called me and asked if I would come down and open the wire gate that leads into Rudy's place.  Rudy is Wach's neighbor to the south.  It wasn't just one or two cows that were out, it was pretty much the whole herd.  Cody thinks that one of the calves, closely followed by his buddy in trouble, a slightly younger calf; got out onto Wach's place. These aren't little calves, the bigger one probably weighs 350 lb, and is clearly a teenager with a big attitude. The first calf's  mamma, who is a good cow mamma, couldn't get through the same place, but did push through Rudy's fence in order to stay with her calf.  The rest of the herd followed. 
Cody pushed the herd back to Rudy's fenceline where none of the cows walked the extra 30 feet to the gate, they all climbed back through the fence.  I knew I'd seen two calves on the Wach's property but by the time the rest of the herd was through I could only see one, who I hazed back through the fence.  Cody and I stapled up the old, old fence to old, old redwood posts.  There was field fencing below topped with two strands of what had once been barbed wire.  The barbs are now so rusted that they are little more than nubs on the wire. There were some new  t-posts that had been installed the wrong way around, making them almost useless.   We then added two or three vertical wires between each post, a lot, considering that the line posts were only about 8 feet apart.  The vertical wires help tie everything together and make it hard for a cow to get their head between the wires.  Once a cow can put their head through the wire they will use their weight to push on through, so stopping the head is important. 
Cody has some fairly serious medical stuff going on and was headed for UCSF in San Francisco for further testing. 
I got another phone call last night around 8pm.  It was Mr Wachs reporting that the last calf had shown up and was safely back through the fence.  With that in mind, this morning, a lovely cool foggy morning (pretty much unheard of in July), I took the chainsaw down, cut up one of the PG&E trees and went on to the Wach fence.  If those calves hadn't been trouble-making teens they wouldn't have challenged that fence, but it was -just- decrepit enough to let them through.  I added staples and lots of verticals.  It should be good for a few more years. 
Now I need to mount the chain saw sharpener. 

Asunder

Jul. 17th, 2025 04:12 pm
psocoptera: ink drawing of celtic knot (Default)
[personal profile] psocoptera
Asunder, Kerstin Hall, 2024 fantasy novel. Really good - compelling worldbuilding, vivid characters, a strong central premise and interesting episodes around that. She's currently working on the sequel and I will be eagerly awaiting it. Old and new powers, some more eldritch and demonic than others, an involuntary soulbond/possession situation, several weird forms of transportation. Recommended to people who liked Perdido Street Station but would like something Mieville-free and woman-centered, or... I'm flailing for a good comparison here. Martha Wells' new fantasy series maybe.

Nonfiction

Jul. 17th, 2025 02:38 pm
rivkat: Dean reading (dean reading)
[personal profile] rivkat
James C. Scott, James Scott, resisting dominance )

Agustin Fuentes, Sex Is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary: not as detailed as I wanted )

Deborah Valenze, The Invention of Scarcity: Malthus and the Margins of History: Malthus and corn (and corn laws) )

Jane Marie, Selling the Dream: The Billion-Dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans: The bad kind of MLM )
Becca Rothfeld, All Things Are Too Small: in praise of excess )

Douglas Brinkley, The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day, and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion: a big day and its commemoration )

Anthony Shadid, Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War: shockingly, it's complicated )

Guru Madhavan, Applied Minds: How Engineers Think: they try things )

Theatre Fandom: Engaged Audiences in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Kirsty Sedgman, Francesca Coppa, & Matt Hills: live theater as a fandom source )

Dan Ariely, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone - Especially Ourselves: he's not wrong or exempt )

Tony Judt, When the Facts Change: Essays, 1995-2010: foresight that didn't help )

KC Davis, How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing: functionality is all )

executrix: (Default)
[personal profile] executrix posting in [community profile] thisfinecrew
oin us for the next Digital Defenders this Tuesday, July 22 at 8PM ET!

We’re diving into the wild side of the web where feminism meets fan culture, from stan wars to shitposts, fanfic to fandom memes. Let’s talk about how fan spaces and meme culture are part of feminist movement building!

📅 Tuesday, July 22
⏰ 8PM ET/5PM PT
🔗 RSVP at https://ow.ly/N9m850WqUjp

Incredible Hulk #163

Jul. 17th, 2025 05:53 pm
iamrman: (Marin)
[personal profile] iamrman posting in [community profile] scans_daily

Writer: Steve Englehart

Pencils: Herb Trimpe

Inks: Sal Trapani


The Hulk stumbles upon a secret Soviet base underneath the Arctic.


Read more... )

fox: my left eye.  "ceci n'est pas une fox." (Default)
[personal profile] fox

So in the fun time that is my life, remember how this new job fell in my lap around Christmas time and I moved over to it on February 11? And then also remember how a lot of unelected teenagers and crypto bros and so forth did a hatchet job on the entire federal government in the spring? Yeah so my new workplace lost millions of dollars in grants, and three people in areas other than mine have been laid off, and yesterday the big boss sat down with me and said he's just not sure they're going to keep having enough work for me to do, and another month from now when my probationary period is over he might not be able to keep me. This is a heads up, not a genuine notice, because it's conceivable they might find a way for it to work out - for one thing, I'm the only one who does what I do and they don't want to go back to having nobody do it. I proposed a couple of solutions, one being to bill most or all of my work to overhead rather than making people put me in as a line item in their project budgets as they're doing now, because the latter has them (a) putting me down for as little work as they can as they're suuuper carefully husbanding their resources and (b) not giving me work until the very end of their process, so I'm sitting around waiting a lot of the time, whereas if I were overhead I could work with people collaboratively and iteratively and not burn up their budgets, so I'd be busier and the products I work on would be better. (Seems like a slam dunk to me, but the overhead money has to come from somewhere, I guess, so maybe that's not as much of a solution as I think.) Another is to bust me back to 60%, which would free up two days a week and still pay more than I was making at my old job.

My old job, by the way, was not allowed to backfill my position - they made someone an offer, which she accepted, and then they had to pull it, and also cut a part-timer and one of two people in the other role they had two of, so they're down to bare bones and no matter what happens to or with this job I can't go back.

So that bites! I had a little cry about it and then activated the bat-signal (emailed my former grandboss and other references), updated my resume, googled some shit, and today I have applied for one (1) job. It's easier to get into a lifeboat from the deck of the ship than from the sea. Maybe I'll aim to apply for one job a week as long as I still have this one and bump it up if it gets where I need to. Also updated my LinkedIn, which I haven't actually even looked at in many many years, but I guess people are still using it?

UGH.

September 2012

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