calissa | Reading

I rewrote SO MUCH MANGA this weekend (counting yesterday as part of "the weekend"). Other than a) the amount of time I spent waiting for my GP appointment yesterday morning and b) going out for ramen and having some social time afterwards on Sunday evening, I feel like rewriting is all I did over the past three days.

I also think that can't be as true as it feels, because I also finally finished reading K.B. Spangler's Stoneskin (which was wonderful, and I'm really excited for the [as-yet-unwritten, AFAIK] trilogy it's a prequel to), and

scruloose and I finally saw the first two episodes of Star Trek: Disco last night.

OTOH, I read most of what I had left of Stoneskin yesterday morning while doing the aforementioned waiting for an appointment, most of which was my own fault. Last month's appointment used up the last of the injectable B12, so I got a new prescription from Dr. Awesome and dropped it off at the pharmacy to be put on file, but then I forgot about it until I was on my way out the door to yesterday's appointment. Fortunately the pharmacy is right next door to Dr. Awesome's office, and I called in to get the new B12 as I started walking, and they got it ready as fast as they could, but it still meant I was late to my appointment (although at least I was able to pop in and say "I'm here! Sort of...").

--I've got a small heap of ST:D reaction posts from all of you tucked away in Memories and was finally able to start sifting through the early ones late last night. I doubt I'm going to do much (if any) commenting on weeks-old posts, but reading them is fun. ^_^

--I'm blanking on another detail about Yuletide logistics. I feel like in previous year's there's been a page (on AO3?) showing all the names of who requested what fandoms (but I think not connected at all to people's optional Dear Yulegoat letters?). Is that right? Am I simply missing it?

--My third year of "only read books (novels, anyway) from my bookcase of purchased TBR or things I've purchased in ebook" is almost up, and the status of the physical bookcase is...dire. I'm not literally out of room to put any more books on it (especially since the bottom shelf has binders of CDs and stuff on it, so the TBR only ["only"] takes up four shelves), but it's not good.

Between that and my wallet, I truly need to buy fewer books. (And relearn the habit of making purchase suggestions for novels with the library, not just anthologies and graphic novels, without getting back into putting tons of things on hold there. No going back to the days of juggling a 300 or 400-item holds list, self. *stern*) Emphasis on the "and my wallet" part, which means not simply switching to buying a higher percentage of things in ebook. (Even if ebooks are usually enough cheaper that doing that also technically means spending less money.)

As is usually the way, I feel like there were other things I meant to mention, but I now have about an hour before I have to throw on proper clothes and head off to Casual Job, and I need to use that hour to proofread some prose. Yes.

Current Mood: busy

havocthecat

I usually ignore the salt measurements except when baking, and just salt to taste, but that's because I've been cooking since I've been old enough to drag a chair to the stove and push vegetables around on a skillet. This is potentially disastrous to people who don't know as much about cooking!

Sometimes your recipes call for a specific type of salt - and there could be an actual reason why. Not if it's trendy salt, usually, but if it's "sea salt," Diamond kosher salt, or Morton's kosher salt, there's a specific reason and you should actually pay attention. Who knew?

I mean, I've been cooking for multiple decades and I had no fucking clue before this morning, so if you didn't know, don't feel bad! Hell, Bon Appetit magazine didn't even know until 2013, and they're goddamn Bon Appetit gourmet magazine.

This is going to make a world of difference in my pickling, that's for sure. No wonder my pickled turnips always turn out too salty.

The Kosher Salt Question

Tagline: Prized for its purity and flaky texture, kosher salt has been a home-cooking standard for decades. But the two major brands, Diamond Crystal and Morton, are very different products. Your ruined meatballs can attest.

Crossposts: http://havocthecat.insanejournal.com/389132.html

hollymath posting in

awesomeers

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!

Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

helloladies posting in

ladybusiness

Authors' Note: This review was written before either of us had watched of the second season. It is chock-full of major spoilers for S1, so proceed with caution!

( Spoiler alert: we love, love, love this show. )

moonvoice

In October,
we revisited the Boranup forest,
this time with my Mum.

Everything was so much greener,
always so much love for Boranup.

The beast with hair of green.

( More forest, this time in October )

ysabetwordsmith

A new-old option is entering the field. Remember that everyone used DIY medication until it became a viciously protected industry. If you find the health care system accessible, affordable, and effective then by all means use it. But if you can't access it, then studying how to do things for yourself is better than dying because some bastard decided to murder people by jacking up the cost of lifesaving medication by 6000% or whatever.

Current Mood: busy
Crossposts: https://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/4483782.html

ysabetwordsmith

In other news, water is wet.

Current Mood: busy
Crossposts: https://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/4483364.html

ysabetwordsmith

... is not a binary, but rather a spectrum with many variations. They're just kind of hard to see when doctors routinely cut off genitals they find offensive. It particularly aggravates me when people argue the "isness" of gender not based on scientific fact but a casual glance at the crotch, which is often wrong in intersex cases. At least a chromosome reading would tell you what the sex chromosomes say. Which is sometimes XXY, XYY, X0, or other things that aren't the standard male or female -- leaving those people legally obligated to lie about their sex on almost every form, which only offer male/female in official contexts. Someone really needs to sue the government for rampant sex discrimination. I mean, imagine if the forms only offered "male" and all women had to lie or go without services. They'd be as pissed as they were back when a lot of places had only men's toilets.

Current Mood: busy
Crossposts: https://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/4483257.html

ysabetwordsmith

... have been sighted making waves together. This is cool. However, these discoveries are moving humans closer to graviton technology. This concerns me. While it's always exciting, it's also extremely dangerous. They haven't even figured out how to use nuclear power safely, which could largely destroy the biosphere. A graviton accident can crack a planet in a half, a developed weapon can pulverize one, and farther up the scale you get sunkiller bombs. *looks at the steaming pile in the Oval Office* I am not sanguine about Earth's survival. :(

We should probably mail some algae and tardigrades to Mars and the water moons while we can.

Current Mood: busy
Crossposts: https://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/4483025.html

ysabetwordsmith

We bought a board game called Planetarium. Tonight we playtested it in preparation for playing with friends later this month. I'm not inclined to do a full review based on one round, but I want to record some preliminary observations so I don't forget them. After I've played some more, I'll add more details and clean up the descriptions.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: amused
Crossposts: https://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/4482779.html

umadoshi

mini_wrimo is open for signups until October 30!

Fannish/Geeky Things/SFF

"Hero-Princess-General Carrie Fisher Once Delivered a Cow Tongue to a Predatory Hollywood Exec". [The Mary Sue]

"Carrie Fisher Insisted That Leia’s Last Jedi Arc Honor All The “Girls Who Grew up Watching Star Wars”". [The Mary Sue]

"Who are Tessa Thompson’s LADY LIBERATORS?" "The Marvel Cinematic Universe has realigned how Hollywood thinks of blockbusters, franchises, and comic book movies. Though the films have been groundbreaking at the box office, it’s been nine years since Marvel Studios began the MCU and they’re still two years away from having a solo female led movie on our screens.

But if Thor: Ragnarok’s Tessa Thompson has anything to do with it, that’s not going to stand. During a recent press conference for Taika Waititi’s much anticipated Thor film, Thompson regaled us with a rad story about confronting Kevin Feige with the possibility of an all-female Marvel movie."

A discussion on N.K. Jemisin's Facebook about the "magic system" (scare quotes hers) in the Broken Earth books. Spoilers!

Abigail Nussbaum on N.K. Jemisin's The Stone Sky.

Cute Stuff

"If You Ever Feel Sad, These 10+ Highland Cattle Calves Will Make You Smile".

September LaPerm pics from

naye. These posts are always great, but I think this one is even better than usual.

Miscellaneous

"We Don't Do That Here". "I have a handful of “magic” phrases that have made my professional career easier. Things like “you are not your code” and my preferred way to say no: “that doesn’t work for me.” These are tools in my interpersonal skills toolbox. I find myself uttering phrases like, “right or effective, choose one” at least once a week. This week I realized I had another magic phrase, “we don’t do that here.”"

Brian Fies' "A Fire Story" is a short comic about him and his wife being burned out of their home in the wildfires.

"Art Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities". (I haven't read the book, but the art is really neat.)

"Photographer Gets Bitten By A Deadly Black Mamba, Still Manages To Finish The Photoshoot". (Many beautiful snake photos!)

"Native-Land.ca: Our home on native land". Searchable map of North America's First Nations territories and pre-colonial histories. "There are over 630 different First Nations in Canada (and many more in the USA) and I am not sure of the right process to map territories, languages, and treaties respectfully - and I'm not even sure if it is possible to do respectfully. I am not at all sure about the right way to go about this project, so I would very much appreciate your input."

"Creating Gender Liberatory Singing Spaces: A Transgender Voice Teacher’s Recommendations for Working with Transgender Singers".

Via

dine, "Pumpkin Spice and Needles: Bookish Autumn Cross Stitch Patterns".

"Video game developers confess their hidden tricks at last".

Via

alisanne, "Why Do We Cook So Many Foods at 350 Degrees?" [Mental Floss]

catherineldf

The weekend kicked off not, as I expected on Friday morning with WomenVenture’s Marketplace and Luncheon, but with a surprise invite from the Tretter Collection at the University of Minnesota to go to the premier of TPT’s LGBTQ MN history documentary, Out North (airing tonight on TPT) at the Cowles Dance Center on Thursday night. The documentary is pretty good, though there are inevitable gaps. It would have been outstanding to hear something about immigrant queer history, for example, which doesn’t turn up much despite the longevity and legacy of local organizations like Shades of Yellow. I’m sure other folks with more knowledge about the queer history of the Cities as well as the rest of Minnesota will have additional thoughts, but with that caveat, I enjoyed it. Coverage of the early organizations and samesex marriage history is pretty detailed and there are some great interviews with Lisa Vecoli of Tretter, Rep. Karen Clark, Andrea Jenkins, Lou Hoffman and a number of other activists, artists, politicians and religious leaders. I really liked the presentation and I’m hoping they do some more followup posts on their blog or interviews on a different show to add some more depth and voices to it. I should mention that I have a moment of glory during Lou Hoffman’s interview; a number of years back, I wrote an article about the Bisexual Organizing Project for an indie newspaper that no longer exists and there is a brief shot of the paper, the article and my byline. Only problem is that it is the article where the paper misspelled my last name (“Lundhoff”), and thus I will be remembered, I suspect. Oh well, nice to be included.

After that, we headed home and I rose in the wee hours of the morning to head over to run a Queen of Swords Press book table at WomenVenture’s Luncheon and Marketplace at a fancy hotel in downtown Minneapolis. And it was fancy! And likely very successful for some vendors. But not, alas, me. Tables were quite spendy, and we were charged extra for Wifi and parking, and while lunch was good and it was nice to see both my Senators on stage congratulating WomenVenture on its 40^th anniversary, it was not a couple of hundred dollars worth of “nice.” I think it would have helped had they not enthusiastically sold us on the “giant crowds eager to spend right before and right after lunch” angle. I sold a couple of books, handed out a few cards and flyers for my November talk at DreamHaven, politely discouraged people eager to send me their latest opus and had some nice chats with the vendors around me, but that was it. I did, however, spend the time fine-tuning my table rap, so there was that.

At 3PM, I had to throw everything together and motor over to the Fairgrounds in St. Paul to set up our table for the Twin Cities Book Festival That part went well, and Michael and Sherry and I got things set up and ready to go for Saturday in time to meet up with Kevin for a nice dinner at ChinDian Café (Indian/Chinese fusion food). Mike showed up early the next day and we zipped back to the Fairgrounds. We were pretty much a table-setup machine so we each had time to make a quick tour. I scored a copy of Edward Gorey’s The Haunted Looking Glass: Ghost Stories, which made me happy.

The day was a whirlwind – I sold a fair number of books and a few mugs, Mike sold some books and we talked to a ton of people. Lots of folks stopped by, including Rachel Gold, Paul Weimer, Charlie Jane Anders Venus DeMars and Joyce Sutphen. I chatted with acclaimed local cartoonist Rob Kirby and bought his latest. And then at the end of the day when we were tired and crispy, Matt and Kevin turned up and helped us load out. So big thumbs up on the TC Book Fest. I’ll definitely look at it for next year. Many thanks to Mike Merriam for being an excellent companion and fine tablemate!

This week is a mad scramble to get the new Emily Byrne book prepped and other stuff before I take off for Sirens next week. Gonna be lively.

davidgillon

K B Spangler has just put up a new AGAHF short story, or rather one whose rights have reverted to her, at http://agirlandherfed.tumblr.com/ Shawn and Jenny talk brains

Mildly spoilery context behind( the cut )

Current Mood: pleased
Current Location: In a fake catacomb/wine cellar/ER

yhlee

One of my favorite songs is The Bloody Lovelies' "Hologram" [YouTube, about 3:30] and while I normally don't care about lyrics, this is one of the times that I wish I could understand them all. I own the physical CD and the booklet-thing doesn't come with lyrics, nor have I been able to find lyrics online.

Is anyone willing to listen to the song and transcribe the lyrics in comments? I would be happy to write you a flashfic to a prompt of your choosing. :]

(Based on the snippets of lyrics I do understand, I consider this to be the unofficial theme song of Revenant Gun, LOL.)

ETA: ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Playing ping pong while the cat is lounging on the ping pong table. This lasted until a stray ping pong ball, uh, caught her in the snoot, at which point she scurried under the table...

Current Mood: curious

davidgillon

"Very successful Artisan/Collectables MARKET on Saturday" says the Rochester City Centre Forum (apparently a joint effort of the council and the High Street traders) on their FB page.

To which I replied: "Very successful, except for those of us who are wheelchair users and find ourselves barred from the footpaths. What you can't see in that top picture is that it is the exit from the disabled car park and the pavement is blocked in both directions, as is the kerb-cut directly in front of that stall - to use the kerb cut safely a wheelchair user needs to start/finish at least as far back as the orange box visible in the picture. In fact it was significantly worse than that when I was in Rochester about 4PM on Saturday as the stall had boxes down the side that meant there wasn't even space to squeeze a narrow wheelchair like mine between the lamppost and stall, taking the unsafe approach down the side of the kerb-cut. For anyone in a wider chair or a powerchair, forget it. Remember, the space in front of the stalls is going to be occupied by customers, so there is even less space available. I ended up having to hop off the kerb, which nearly threw me out of my chair and didn't even try to use the entrance on my return, despite that being my normal route back to the car.

The steep camber of Rochester High Street makes it difficult to wheelie from road to pavement without risking tipping - I can't do it at all if I have the anti-tip protection deployed on my chair - and many people have chairs, powerchairs or scooters which are completely incapable of kerb-climbing. The reality of the choice of stalls which block the full width of the pavement is that they completely block wheelchair users from accessing the shops between them, or even safely exiting the disabled car park.

Rochester High Street is an obstacle course to wheelchair users at the best of times due to paving, camber, and cobbles, but these stalls leave it completely inaccessible. I raised the issue with the Council after their previous appearance, and was assured my concerns, particularly with respect to the kerb cut would be passed on, but this time things were even worse. To use the space in front of the disabled car park, blocking wheelchair users from exiting, really shows a careless contempt for the needs and rights of disabled people."

I had a reply within about an hour from the chair of the Forum. He did promise to do something about the kerb-cuts, but did not impress by first launching into a rant about cyclists on the pedestrianised High Street (why yes, I did know it's pedestrianised on Saturday, that's beside the point, the road doesn't help if I can't get from road to footpath) and then protesting "It's only 12 times a year," and "it's for the community". Do I not count as a member of the community?

Grrrrrrr!!!!

ETA: there's now a nebulous "this problem will be addressed", so I asked them to make sure they got a wheelchair user's input as to whether it did fix the problem or not.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: Not wanted in Rochester, apparently

ysabetwordsmith

The unsold poetry list for the October 3, 2017 Poetry Fishbowl is now up on LiveJournal.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Growing a little piece of history. :D

Current Mood: amused
Crossposts: https://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/4482220.html

mayakittenreads

Watch on YouTube

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Canberra, Australia

ysabetwordsmith

The half-price sale in Polychrome Heroics is now open over on LiveJournal.

Current Mood: busy
Crossposts: https://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/4481866.html

ysabetwordsmith

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Read "Real Friends Help You Hide the Bodies" by Bairnsidhe
Poem: "Digging In"
Poem: "The Green Monkey"
Read "Rule 34" by Siliconshaman
Sunday Yardening
Reward for Impeachment
Poem: "Come Closer in Kinship"
Crowdfunding Creative Jam
Kneeling
Poem: "Liminality"
Toward Activity Scouts
Friday Yardening
Poem: "Transpeciation"
Thursday Yardening
Poem: "Transcend Apparent Limits"
Moment of Silence: David Patterson
Wednesday Yardening
A Word for America Today
Good News

There is a half-price sale in Polychrome Heroics this week. Shop for poetry, or watch for new goodies to appear.

Poetry in Microfunding:
"The Inner Transition" belongs to Polychrome Heroics: Berettaflies and has 7 new verses. Stylet comes out of the shower. "The Higher a Monkey Climbs" belongs to Polychrome Heroics. Pips and Jules discuss what to get for G and Joshua after the fire.

We got a little rain, and the weather turned much cooler. Currently blooming: dandelions, marigolds, petunias, lantana, million bells, firecracker plant, morning glories, frost asters, goldenrod. Most of the fields around us have been harvested.

I saw a couple of sparrows around the birdfeeders this week. Right now there is a male cardinal around my office window. :D

Current Mood: busy
Crossposts: https://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/4481517.html

Profile

Calissa

October 2017

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

Page Summary

umadoshi - Back-to-the-office mishmash post
havocthecat - At long last, I know why some recipes call for "sea salt" and it's not actually ridiculous!
hollymath in awesomeers - Just One Thing (17 October 2017)
helloladies in ladybusiness - Jodie and KJ Co-Review S1 of The Good Place
moonvoice - [Photos] 2017 - Boranup Forest II
ysabetwordsmith - DIY Medication
ysabetwordsmith - Cetaceans Have Complex Societies
ysabetwordsmith - Sexual Diversity
ysabetwordsmith - Gravity and Light
ysabetwordsmith - Planetarium First Impressions
umadoshi - Linkspam: fannish/geeky/SFF, cute, misc.
catherineldf - Weekend Write-up: Fun and Games and Tabling, oh My
davidgillon - Ooh, new AGAHF short story....
yhlee - music lyrics?
davidgillon - Very successful - not from where I was sitting
ysabetwordsmith - Unsold Poetry for the October 3, 2017 Poetry Fishbowl
ysabetwordsmith - Johnny Appleseed
mayakittenreads - Dewey's 24 Hour Readthon TBR
ysabetwordsmith - Half-Price Sale in Polychrome Heroics
ysabetwordsmith - Monday Update 10-16-17

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