ckd | Network

The context is Simone Giertz's Incomplete White Puzzle, which A got me partly to troll me and partly because they thought I'd enjoy it and partly because getting the bundle of all three puzzles gets you 20% off individual list prices.

Current status: 105/"500" pieces in their final positions, plus another 57 no longer singletons. I have several semi-sorted categories including (in the halves of the box) "could plausibly have come from a reasonable puzzle" and "bullshit", and (on the table) Swoopy Bullshit, Offset Noses, Weirdly Straight, Multi-Nose Bullshit, and Featureless Curves.

( THOUGHTS )

I am having a very pleasant and soothing time, and I am trying to break up the hyperfocus by instituting a rule of Get Up And Do One Unit Of Something Else After Every (Contiguous) Piece Placed, and yes that is me rules-lawyering after the fact...

likealighthouse posting in

fandom_on_dw

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soemand

Scored a tiny but satisfying win today. That Rock ’N’ Roll High School: Class of ’88 cassette I grabbed for a buck? Turns out I didn’t overpay at all — if anything, I lucked into a solid little find for the test pile. Even better, the mix actually got a thumbs‑up from my wife, which might be the rarest achievement of all. Moments like this make the hunt feel worth it.

Side	Track	Artist	Title
A	1	Cutting Crew	(I Just Died) In Your Arms
A	2	The Box	Closer Together
A	3	Feargal Sharkey	A Good Heart
A	4	OMD	Forever Live And Die
A	5	Honeymoon Suite	What Does It Take
B	1	The Human League	Human
B	2	Steve Winwood	Higher Love
B	3	Janet Jackson	Nasty
B	4	Kim Mitchell	Patio Lanterns
B	5	Starship	We Built This City

sister_raphael

I'm excited to announce I'm partnering with InHouse Publishing for the rest of the little Medieval Wisdom Quote books set.

The

y're family owned and operated right here in Brisbane, (and have been for 25 years) employing local people. What this means for me, is that my little medieval quote set books can be ordered and sent out directly from their web shop and they'll handle my distribution for shops. I'll be announcing pre-orders for Medieval Household Hints: Advice of Running a Household From The Middle Ages Which You Still Need Today early next week, so keep an eye out for that!

Best for me is that along with the ones they'll be publishing for me, they'll be adding my first one in the set, Medieval Wisdom for Modern Women, to their book store as well and adding it to their new catalogue, so potentially it opens up a whole new reach for me.

Local sales have been well supported, but getting the book into shops has been a lot harder as an individual. Having an established publisher behind the new releases will lend a bit more street cred to the releases.

Pre-orders will go live early next week and the fantastic thing about this is there's no Amazon involved. The physical copies of books will be around four weeks (or slightly less) and I've had the guided tour through their facility and can confirm that any pre-orders will be honoured right up front (unlike the first book Amazon pre-orders which got cancelled and disappointed a lot of people and they had to re-order.)

There's other book news too, but that's still under wraps for now!

lauradi7dw

https://stopicetoday.com/

osprey_archer

Although Lieutenant Hornblower is the second book chronologically in the Hornblower series, it was one of the later books written in the series. So, although the narrator is in fact Lieutenant Bush rather than Hornblower himself, it is very much a Hornblower book, which has the presumably unintentional effect of making Bush sound absolutely obsessed with Hornblower.

Oh, sure, he’s constantly running down Hornblower’s appearance (he looks like a scarecrow! He looked like he dressed in the dark and forgot to straighten his clothes!)... but that just shows he’s extremely aware of Hornblower’s appearance, as he rarely comments on how anyone else looks. He stares at Hornblower’s beautiful, skillful, fascinating hands (yes, he actually describes them as fascinating), and wonders if admiring a junior lieutenant smacks of French equalitarianism. He watches Hornblower drink a bucket of water from the well, which sluices down his chin and soaks his white shirt, and “The very sight of him was enough to make Bush, who had already had one drink from the well, feel consumed with thirst all over again.”

I mean yes they did just complete a sneak attack during which no one had a drink in the tropical heat for at least 12 hours, but also WOW. That’s what seeing Hornblower in a wet shirt does to a man, huh!

And then Bush is wounded, and the last thing he remembers before he blacks out is Hornblower’s pleading, tender voice… his gentle hands… the feeling of being safe and comforted by Hornblower’s presence… And once he’s in hospital on land, Hornblower brings him an entire basket of tropical fruit, and Bush is so bowled over he barely manages a “Thank you,” and then they just gaze at each other, which, let’s be real, is probably Hornblower’s preferred love language: Significant Looks.

Then later on Hornblower gets appointed captain, and Bush is so thrilled and so drunk that he ends the night stumbling down the hall, both arms around Hornblower’s neck, bellowing “FOR HE’S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW” at the top of his lungs as Hornblower helps him to bed. One presumes that Forester simply cut out before Bush dragged Hornblower in for a sloppy drunken kiss and Hornblower patted him awkwardly on the shoulder and fled.

So yes, all the people who recced Hornblower on the grounds that it is very slashy are 100% right. Amazing. This may in fact be the high point of slashiness for the series, as it seems unlikely that Hornblower POV is ever going to be quite as obsessed with Bush as Bush is with Hornblower (the series after all is not called Lieutenant Bush), but we shall see.

Oh, as for the actual plot, ( spoilers )

cosmolinguist

Today's Teddywalk took us a slightly unusual way -- I let him choose, within reason. He didn't spend as long sniffing the grass triangle as before, and afterward when I wanted to drag him more directly back toward his house he scampered off the other way. This took us to a tree-lined residential street where he decided to poop next to one of the trees just as a man parked his land barge just behind us and the kids that got out of it were entertained by this free show.

This route also took us past a school where, even though it was nearing 5 o'clock, kids were going toward the school, with their grownups. They kinda looked like they were wearing pajamas? Some were in bathrobes or oodies. Some seemed to carry pillows or soft toys. One was almost hidden behind a Stitch that must have been fully half her size. It was adorable.

I had a pretty good day otherwise too.

Work was oddly satisfying.

A bunch of things happened to coincide today: I presented my new train report twice, first to a panel of subject-matter experts and accessibility advocates that I'm on, where people were very kind about it (especially as it was at the end of an hour and a half meeting that some people had to leave early and/or thought was only an hour long; one made sure to apologize for leaving halfway through but told me he'd read the report and it was good, which was very sweet).

Then in the afternoon I presented it to a group of lived-experience campaigners, a group I attended back when I was a volunteer who didn't have this job yet. They did their usual thing of wanting to vent their spleens on any tangentially-related topic, but I'm used to that and I kinda love it. Afterward, my colleague who runs these meetings messaged me to thank me and say she appreciates that I always handle the questions so well. I didn't think I'd done anything special! But despite that (or actually because of it!) this was really nice to hear.

And as well as feeling particularly competent with the different audiences my work is for, I also had a quick one-to-one(ish) with my manager which indirectly addressed the stuff I've been stressing about lately and where seemed much happier than I'm used to hearing with the work that I have done in the last year and the stuff that's coming up this year.

It's funny because the other day, on our way to the theater, D pointed out where transgym yoga had moved to: one of those "not actually far away but hard for me to find/get to on a bus" places. So I actually looked at yoga on the transgym website and not only was it on this Friday (it's every other week), but it was back at its old location! My hips are so much happier now, and it'll be good for my brain too.

And now, after a week that was really truly about a month long, it's the weekend! We have basically no plans, and the fascists aren't even yelling at the hotel this Sunday!

So many good things.

dorchadas

So Laila spent some time at the grandparents over the weekend, which was good because I got a nasty cold that knocked me out most of the weekend. I had meant to spend it cleaning up some of the post-game content in Clair Obscur, but what actually happened is that I started dragging on Friday night, woke up Saturday morning and helped pass off Laila to Poppa and Nana. Then after lunch, with no energy, I thought "Oh I'll just go lie down for twenty minutes or so, then I'll feel better."

What happened is that I fell asleep for two hours and then when

sashagee checked, I had a fever. So I spent the next couple days recovering and not accomplishing any of things I wanted to get done while Laila was out of town, spent yesterday and today working from home, and now when my nose has finally stopped running my throat is hurting and it's not from too much coughing. Sigh.

That meme I saw was right. I did used to think I had a good immune system before I became an abba, but it was just that I didn't have anyone around who would roughly cough directly into my open mouth. Emoji Uncertain ~ face

Current Mood: sick
Current Music: Nothing

dorktower_feed

Posted by John Kovalic

https://www.dorktower.com/2026/02/06/original/

https://dorktower.kovalic.com/?p=19930

Most DORK TOWER strips are now available as signed, high-quality prints, from just $25! CLICK HERE to find out more!

HEY! Want to help keep DORK TOWER going? Then consider joining the DORK TOWER Patreon and ENLIST IN THE ARMY OF DORKNESS TODAY! (We have COOKIES!) (And SWAG!) (And GRATITUDE!)

https://www.dorktower.com/2026/02/06/original/

https://dorktower.kovalic.com/?p=19930

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3204/

Staplers are actually in Pseudosuchia, making them more closely related to crocodiles than to dinosaurs.

https://xkcd.com/3204/

choco_frosh

Unpopular opinion:
"Balance Competing Priorities" should be a job requirement ONLY for people who are in supervisory positions.

arlie

I am a paid subscriber to the Guardian. Thanks to the wonders of modern digital technology, I regularly find myself logged out from their website. Today I launched a number of tabs from their main page, and read a couple before they started demanding I log in to continue reading. After I logged into one tab, I had to do it again on every single remaining already open tab, though at least clicking on login was enough - I didn't have to provide account and password - though they did require a second click on a confirmation screen before I could read the article in that tab.

One of the tabs was In an era of frictionless digital experiences .... It was one of those requiring this annoying login friction. And I couldn't find any way to leave a comment about the inanity of the author's belief in frictionless digital, short of a formal letter to the editor.

In other news, Nextdoor has changed something about their spam messages such that I had to personally classify yesterday morning's message as spam. Hopefully that will shut them up again for a time.

On the good side, I'm enjoying setting up my Kubuntu system, and hopeful that most of the friction I'm experiencing is just learning curve, and any changes I make will result in things staying fixed.

But a large ugly raspberry to Steam, where I was reduced to searching a very large directory tree, looking for files containing a particular string, to find the files I needed to edit to take various games out of full screen mode, since they've broken the UI they used to have for doing this. That took a while, and was probably beyond the capabilities of anyone who didn't grow up on the command line with tools like find, xargs, and grep. (Maybe Kubuntu has a contents search GUI - IIRC, MacOS does - but if so I haven't found it.)

Also a small raspberry to Good Old Games, for reacting to changes in linux distros by making various games no longer available for linux, rather than either updating their dosbox packaging, or offering the old packages - or even the raw games - with a warning that you'll need to download and configure a recent dosbox yourself. (I salvaged my copies of the obsolete versions from a backup. And I'm not happy that GOG promises I can re-download any game I bought from their library, forever, but at this point to get those games I'd probably have to download them from a windows system.)

vivdunstan

Enjoying our new Friday afternoon ritual, making us a Moka pot of coffee to share. Still remarkably fun to watch, and tastes so good.

We got a 4-cup (4 espresso sized servings of coffee) Bialetti Moka Express stovetop coffee maker, which I figured would work for both of us (though not the hugest serving size for two), and also at a push for just one of us (hyper caffeinated!). Moka pots are not designed to be half filled to make a smaller portion size ... Our Moka pot makes remarkably good coffee, which we serve with heated oak milk (MOMA, my usual milk with coffee now). The coffee we're using is Lavazza Crema e Gusto pre ground coffee for an easy time, bought in our local supermarket, perfect for a Moka pot, traditional Italian flavour, if not quite as wow as freshly ground beans. But it's convenient, and tastes great. We heat the Moka pot on the cooker hob on a very low heat, using pre-heated water, and the resulting coffee is not at all bitter. Neither of us feels the need to add sugar, even Martin who usually adds it by the shovel full.

A Bialetti moka pot coffee maker on a stove top. As the bottom of the aluminium moka pot heats up coffee bubbles up into the serving chamber above. In the picture the moka pot lid is open so we can see the coffee emerge. At the point when the picture was taken it is getting quite full with strong bubbly coffee.

A Bialetti moka pot coffee maker on a stove top. As the bottom of the aluminium moka pot heats up coffee bubbles up into the serving chamber above. In the picture the moka pot lid is open so we can see the coffee emerge. At the point when the picture was taken it is getting quite full with strong bubbly coffee.

Photo of a tray, with on the left a saucer with a Mr Kipling apple pie, and on the right a green Sniff Moomins cup with coffee in it.

olivermoss

* There is now an easter egg on google.com if you search for Heated Rivalry. Rachel's reaction.

* There is going to be a Baldur's Gate 3 TV show! *thinks about this for three seconds* Yeah, there was talk of this when the game was blowing up and everyone agreed it would be a bad idea. Also, it's a continuation so it will be based on one of probably hundreds of possible end-game states and this show will be based on one of the popular ones. And

spoiler title

Astarian is going to be either dead, evil or unable to travel. His non-evil ending is staying in the Underdark because he becomes vulnerable to the sun again. Rather than a game that is about exploring the choices you like, popular or not, it will be tied to what will sell the best. One of the appeals of games is not being tied to that. Even if you would choose to be a male Tav romancing Shadowheart, you are still choosing it not being fed it.

askamanager_feed

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/02/open-thread-february-6-2026.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=35824

It’s the Friday open thread!

The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers.

* If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer.

The post open thread – February 6, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/02/open-thread-february-6-2026.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=35824

lsanderson

ICE

‘You’re not going to investigate a federal officer’
It doesn’t happen often, but local law enforcement can arrest and charge federal agents. Legal experts say there’s a moral obligation to at least try to hold federal immigration officers accountable when they violate the Constitution and the law.
By Andy Mannix, Melissa Sanchez and Nicole Foy / ProPublica
https://www.minnpost.com/national/2026/02/youre-not-going-to-investigate-a-federal-officer/

Sahan Journal has the story of Minnesotans who have been transferred to ICE detention centers in Texas and released with no way to return home. “In recent weeks, lawyers have filed a flurry of successful court challenges compelling the government to release their clients, but that has left an increasing number of Minnesotans stranded outside detention facilities far from home,” they report. “In some cases, ICE has refused to return identification cards or work permits to those released from detention, attorneys say.”
https://sahanjournal.com/immigration/ice-detainees-stranded-after-release/

Man arrested in early-morning Minneapolis federal raid is charged with cyberstalking
The 6 a.m. raid, which involved at least 11 officers, took place at Eat Street Flats in the Whittier neighborhood. The man arrested doxxed a “pro-ICE individual,” according to a criminal complaint.
by Joey Peters
https://sahanjournal.com/public-safety/federal-raid-kyle-wagner-detained-whittier-minneapolis/ ( Read more... )

prisca posting in

fic_promptly

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lotesse

If there was ever any doubt that the US Republican party are racists, let it end now.

thewayne

The internal classified version was started in 1962 as The National Basic Intelligence Factbook. It was a resource that gave you very detailed information about countries around the world: form of government, economic information, population and make-up, etc. Very useful information. It went public in 1971 as the World Factbook and later joined the World Wide Web in 1997 in an unclassified version. It was available between '71 and '97 in print form and on CD.

And now it's gone. Any page for any country that you may have had linked now redirects to the closure notice. Everything's now inaccessible. Of course, you can still look into it via archive.org, but the information was updated regularly when the site was live, and it will now grow increasingly stale.

No reason given. The CIA was subject to the same chainsaw-trimming that most other government agencies were given courtesy of DOGE and the Muskbrats. We also have the intense administration's dislike of facts. Either or both could have contributed to its demise.

But with a little luck, in a possibly truthier future, it could be resurrected. There's no doubt that the CIA found the resource useful, so it may again become available to the public in a better tomorrow.

https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-cia-stops-publishing-the-world-factbook-184419024.html

https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/spotlighting-the-world-factbook-as-we-bid-a-fond-farewell/

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/02/05/187252/cia-has-killed-off-the-world-factbook-after-six-decades

EDIT: added Slashdot link.

tyger

So, I got up! I did some sanding - and it was like how I hoped, SUPER easy to get done, I barely had to use the electric sander at all! But. While I was doing that. I found more holes. :| :| :|

So I filled those in, and took a break while they dried to get food and stuff, and then I came back to sand them and guess what??

I bet you guessed!

I found even more holes. Only two, but that's two too many!!! :|

Anyway, I filled those - and they're probably dry by now but also it's 3am and no, self, you're trying to NOT stay up all night - so I'll sand them first thing in the morning, and let the dust settle while I nap.

And THEN there will be an undercoat layer because fuck this shit, too many goddamn patches I'm not going to risk it.

Anyway I'm pretty grumpy about that!!! But at least I should be able to get both the undercoat and at least one layer of actual paint on tomorrow. Maybe even two, but I don't remember the drying time off the top of my head, so. (Will also depend on weather but it's not supposed to rain... humidity is pretty goddamn high though, so I guess we'll see!)

Current Mood: grumpy
Current Location: Birthplace

sonofgodzilla

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: somewhere
Current Music: Sakimoto Hitoshi - Staring into the Void

bookscorpion posting in

common_nature

I took a bunch of really nice photos of the crow army today - with the light reflecting from the snow, the details of their feathers come out so beautifully. Look at how blue/purple the big feathers are, edged by black, compared to the dark black of the smaller head feathers.

This is the boldest of them. He stayed juuuust out of arm's reach but didn't mind me kneeling down and stretching my arm out at him. He miiiight be Mr Roadside Pair but I don't think so, I think he is smaller.,,,

larryhammer

I’m an aloha shirt kind of guy. Not all of my wardrobe is brightly floral—I need a few more subdued patterns for less informal occasions, such as starting work in an office where I haven’t confirmed aloha is acceptable business casual wear. But a fair number are, most of them tasteful.

This is mostly by temperament—they signal (though let me asterisk that * ) a laid-back temperament, which is both true and helps me through interactions with strangers. Mostly, as there’s also a practical component. I’ve mentioned this a couple times, but I come across IRL as taller than I do online: I’m 6'4" / 193cm. Finding men’s short-sleeve shirts that are long enough for my torso to stay tucked in is a challenge. (Paradoxically, it’s easier with long-sleeve shirts, as “long” sizes is a thing for those.) Aloha shirts, however, are designed to not be tucked in, and indeed look worse that way. Win!

But then there’s that asterisk: * I’m graying enough, both hair and goatee (which last I’ve been keeping for two years now), that I can sometimes be misidentified as a Boomer, and a Boomer in an aloha shirt signals a different temperament than a younger guy in one. I’m lean enough I don’t entirely lean into that stereotype, but still. I’m older Gen X and … touchy … about being mistaken for a Boomer.

The goatee is starting to annoy me in other ways, anyway, so maybe shaving it will help—it has the most white. Or I could, yanno, suck it up and deal. Be laid-back. Just like the shirts claim.

---L.

Subject quote from We Can Work It Out, The Beatles.

hamsterwoman

dreamersdare is hosting a Stuff I Love – Top 10 Edition weekly challenge throughout February, with the first week being media one-shots.

I’m not going to try for a ranked top 10 for this or other weeks, because that way madness lies, but I did want to try to get to a list of 10 things I love that fit the challenge.

I pondered just a free-form list of one-shots of different mediums and genres, but eventually what coalesced is this: a list of standalone SFF fiction. One of the things I really love about SFF is the long series, the magical sagas, multi-volume explorations of worldbuilding, sometimes across real-world decades and in-universe millennia – your Tolkien Legendariums, your Earthseas, your Dragaeras, your Vokosigan Sagas. So it’s particularly notable when I enjoy a SFF standalone, which manages to pack that worldbuilding and that sensawunda into a single piece. Sometimes even quite a short one, because I included short stories, novellas, and novelettes in scope of this.

In no particular order, and selected by starting with a considerably longer list and picking things from it until I felt like I’d picked all the right ones.

( top 10 )

smoothbores

Watch on YouTube

I couldn't help myself I had to hype this video, they are so cute in the snow 💚

summersgate

Hello, and Face. I was just playing with making marks in a very old block of carving rubber I had. After I printed it (on the right) it looked like a face to me. So I carved it some more and put on a word (the left). Maybe I'll feel more comfortable with carving into the new blocks now.

wildeabandon

I got my exam results yesterday, and they were slightly disappointing, in the "virtually anyone would be fucking delighted, but they were all on the low end of what I was expecting" sense of the word disappointing. I got 15/20 in Catechetics, 16/20 in Anthropology, 17/20 in Psalms & Prophets, and 18/20 in Hebrew II and Ugaritic. The first two are entirely understandable - I wasn't particularly keen on either course, and whilst by no means neglecting them completely, I didn't put in a particularly high level of effort. I'm happy enough with the 18s. They were both challenging courses, and 18 is a bloody good mark.

The one that's bugging me is the Psalms though. I thought I understood the material well, and that I'd had some interesting and insightful things to say. I know that I got 18/20 in the paper that makes up half the mark, which means that I only got 15-16/20 in the exam. Hardly the end of the world, but it's the only one where I don't understand why I didn't do better. I've emailed the prof to ask for feedback, so with luck I'll get something useful. (ETA: Apparently marks get rounded down, not up - I got 8/10 and 9/10 in the two exam questions, and the 8 was because he had to prompt me a couple of times, and since at least one of those time he prompted me for the thing I was about to say anyway I am now feeling a lot less bothered by the overall mark.)

One result though which is positive in a sense is that my overall grade is now almost guaranteed. My average is currently 87%. The top grade boundary is an average of 90%, which had seemed in reach before these results, but would now require me to get 20/20 in all but one of my remaining courses (and 19/20 in that), which isn't really plausible. The grade boundary below is an average of 85%, and whilst the fact that there are just more numbers between 0 and 87 than between 87 and 100 means that there's more scope for my grade to be dragged down than up, I would have to do quite a bit worse than I have been for that to happen. Anyway, the sense that there's not a lot that I can do to change my overall grade means that I can concentrate more on learning for the sake of learning, which in the long term is almost certainly better than chasing grades.

fromtheheartofeurope_feed

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/frankenstein-and-the-patchwork-man-by-jack-heath/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65181

Second paragraph of third chapter:

‘These trees don’t look all that healthy’, she observed.

A Ninth Doctor and Rose story which exports the Frankenstein narrative to 1880s Wales, throwing in some Unquiet Dead-style aliens as well. I thought it was very confidently written, and in particular captured the Series One Rose very well, with in general a good sense of the human landscape – with exceptions; Heath, an Australian with a solid writing record of his own, doesn’t seem to realise that Wales doesn’t have lochs.

This was the sixth of the eight Puffin Doctor Who Classic Crossover novels, of which I had already read the first two (both by Jac Rayner). I’ll keep an eye out for the other five, four of which are by Paul Magrs.

You can get Frankenstein and the Patchwork Man here.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/frankenstein-and-the-patchwork-man-by-jack-heath/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65181

prettygoodword

arboricide (ah-BOR-i-said) - n., an herbicide intended to kill trees or shrubs; (rare) the killing of a tree.

Or as the OED puts it, "the wanton destruction of trees." In memory of the large pine that, until yesterday, stood between our house and the neighbor's, shading us from the southwest. Its destruction was not wanton, however, as it like all too many pines in our neighborhood was dying (bark beetles). Coined in the 1890s from Latin roots arbor, tree + -cidium, killing (from caedere, to cut/kill).

---L.

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: awake

spiralsheep

Science! Always read the notes. Scientists hide all the funny stuff in the notes. From page 40 of 67 pages of notes, bottom of a long note 27 for chapter 8:
"In 1849, through exchange, Higgins gave the Yorkshire Museum 'fossil fishes from Lyme Regis'. Annual Report of the Council of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society for 1849, 20 (as well as donating a 'Turnip presenting a singular monstrosity of form' to the botany collections)."
Monstrous turnip! :D

Reading: on book 21. If anyone wants me to post a monthly list of my 4/5 and 5/5 books then please apply in writing to the management &c.

Friday Five:
( Q1-4. )

5. What does it take to make you happy?
The chain of tiny everyday pleasures: cozy bed, daylight, hot drinks that are absolutely perfect in their moment, truly soft comfy old clothes, whatever the plants are doing this week (e.g. mistletoe spheres high in bare branches), my birb neighbours (get out of my chimney you jackdaw b@$t@rd5! Note to self - get capping pot replaced), my human neighbours acknowledging each other but not intruding when in our shared spaces, the bus queue chats, &c.
Ecstatic joy is a wonderful bonus but I don't need it.

Current Location: Under the chimneypot of doom?

princessofgeeks

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princessofgeeks

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mallorys_camera

We had a brief respite from the punishingly cold temperatures: Last few days, temps actually broke freezing. But today, the polar vortex is bearing back down again. The National Weather Service has issued a Severe Weather Alert: Dangerously cold wind chills as low as 20 to 35 below zero expected throughout the quaint & scenic Hudson Valley.

This disinclines me to leave the house 'cause what if—minute chance, but still—my car breaks down on the way to the gym? Frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes.

###

In Work in Progress news: We are up to the Debbie Reynolds death scene, which occurs during an ICU code, so I am wracking my tiny brain for status detail.

Then Grazia ends up going to the creepy New Millennium Kingdom mansion, where she spends 18 hours a day praying as the initial prep work for dismantling her personality begins.

Neal rescues her!

Big dilemma: Does Neal rescue her before or after the creepy mansion bursts into flame from a faulty electrical connection? (Decisions, decisions!)

Then Neal & Grazia have to have some sort of Meaningful Conversation on the front porch of Neal's Catskills cabin.

And magically, perspective swirls so that we are back at the very first scene of Part 1 when Grazia drives up there following Neal's memorial.

It would be great if I could tweak the closing prose too, so it mimics the chick lit cadence of that opening chapter, but I'm not sure I have the writing chops to pull that one off.

But after that, we start with Part 2: Daria.

###

I have my own Bad Cult memories, though I'd have to do some serious excavating to access them since they're buried under many decades of petrified protective amnesia.

As a teenager, I had dealings with a cult called Synanon.

Synanon didn't eat me, but it ate some people I cared about back then—most notably, Michael Garrett whom I still wonder about sometimes late at night.

I'm not sure how many of those Bad Cult memories I can repurpose. They're awfully immersive, and immersion is only of questionable usefulness in a passage that's supposed to be 1,500 words or so in length max. Don't really want to distract from the essential story, which is Neal & Grazia.

Here is Michael Garrett and me in 1968:

nilchance

tonight is the night for Eve of Vecna, the d&d game that's a continuation of our Curse of Strahd campaign, and this is a song I've been listening to and thinking of Tali the grave cleric:

Watch on YouTube

( rambling under the cut )

lauradi7dw

One doesn't have to be old to be affected by heart problems. These are the spokespeople for this year's campaign
https://www.goredforwomen.org/en/about-heart-disease-in-women/class-of-survivors

poliphilo

The Lewes Meeting House has a copy of this print. It'll be worth a few bob. They have it leaning against a wall, out of sight, out of mind. I love old prints and if I weren't a fine upstanding citizen I'd have waited until no-one was looking and added it to my collection.

mw65663_800x657.jpg.webp

It's called Mr West and his family. The original was painted by Mr West and commemorates a visit of his elderly male relatives to see his new-born second son. The two old gents are Quakers wearing Quaker gear- which is presumably why the Lewes Meeting House aquired it.

Mr West is Benjamin West, the American painter. Born in Pennsylvania, he studied in Italy, as one did, then moved to England where he prospered, becoming court painter to George III and the second president of the Royal Academy, in succession to Joshua Reynolds. He seems to have been an agreeable man. When the American colonies rebelled against the mother country he kept a discreet silence and wouldn't be drawn.

He is best known for big, splashy paintings of historical events. He did Bible stories, Roman history, medieval history and modern times. and was prolific in producing them. Sadly they are not very much to modern taste, being theatrical, melodramatic and often wildly inaccurate. If you set aside your prejudices it is possible to admire them for their energy and imagination. The best known of them, and one of the most carefully considered is his Death of Wolfe. Wolfe was the general who captured Quebec from the French- thus securing Canada for the British Empire. I do rather like it. As West's histories go it is really quite restrained. Wolfe was famous and singular among officers for carrying a rifle- just like a common soldier- and there it is discarded at his feet. West has done his research.

Scrolling through the reproductions of West's work on wikipedia I found a number of rather charming little paintings of everyday subjects which look as if they were done quickly, freely and possibly even for fun. In the first we have some gentlemen in a punt out fishing with what looks rather like a sea battle going on in the far distance. In the second we see some sturdy British peasants reaping corn and canoodling in the vicinity of Windsor Castle while some glittery gentlefolk look on.

Benjamin_West_-_Gentlemen_Fishing_-_Google_Art_Project.jpeg

Benjamin_West_-_Gentlemen_Fishing_-_Google_Art_Project.jpeg

Harvesting_at_Windsor_by_Benjamin_West,_PRA.jpeg

shewhomust

Against all precedent, my morning was brightened by an item on the Today programme.

Not only has a new prize been announced, which will give serious money each year to an artist to create a work somewhere in the UK that is free for the public to visit, the first award goes to Andy Goldsworthy.