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mellowtigger ([personal profile] mellowtigger) wrote2025-08-08 09:48 pm
Entry tags:

it has been a week

We are still short-handed on the weekend shift, so I continued working Saturday and Sunday. I took vacation time for Monday-Wednesday, though. I intended to do some yard work, but I got almost none of it done. The day that I went outside and tried to clean up the front yard a bit, I came back inside afterward and slept for about 2 hours when I sat down in the living room chair for a few minutes to cool off. I'm just so tired all of the time, it seems. Even today, I laid down in bed around 5pm, thinking I'd take a quick nap. I woke up 3 hours later. Exhausted, after a busy day of doing not much of anything.

I accomplished a few things this week, at least. On Wednesday afternoon, I did the interview for the lead position on my team at work. That night, I got almost no sleep. I went to bed at 10am, and I saw every hour on the clock until 7am except the hours of 1am, 5am, and 6am. My brain just wouldn't shut off, replaying questions and answers from the interview. I dislike interviews so very much.

I also went to another emergency dental appointment on Thursday morning. To review quickly, I busted that tooth a few years ago, then I busted the repair work, and recently I've busted 2 temporary caps on it. Ugh. I get the permanent metal cap in 2 more weeks. Apparently these days, caps are custom fit to molds they took of what remains of this tooth. I hope I can go 2 more weeks without doing any more damage to it.

After the last dental appointment, I rode the bus past my house northward to the Colonial Market to get a burrito bowl to take home for lunch. I walked past 4 police cars at the store entrance, with officers searching the nearby ground for evidence of something. Apparently it wasn't store related, though, just the neighborhood being what it is.

And, finally, this morning I woke up to another dream.

I don't remember the early part of the dream, but I had a "splinter" in my hand that was annoying me. I went to the bathroom in front of the mirror and tried opening up the wound where it was. I saw a dark line of something that was bent in a semi-circular loop. I thought that was weird, a splinter curling around that way instead of just going straight in. I used a needle to pluck at the top of the loop and pull it out of me. It came out thicker than expected. I put aside the needle and used my other hand to pull it out. It became clear that it was not wood or metal but was a worm of some kind. I got about a finger's length out of me, then it started wriggling. My hand was too slippery from the blood/fluid, and I lost my hold as it started worming its way back into my wound. I felt emotions at this experience, and emotions are bad for thinking, so I woke up.

Clearly, that dream was related to the actual splinter that has been bothering me all week. It's in my left foot, though. On the first day, when I couldn't find what was in my foot, I put some medication on it and put an unusually large band-aid on it, thinking it would help stick to that spot as I walked on it. That night, I forgot about the bandage and removed my socks before getting into bed. The next day, I thought, "What is that sensation on my back?" I felt around and removed what turned out to be that band-aid from my foot. That was a rough night's sleep, apparently?

ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-08-08 08:27 pm
Entry tags:

Safety

Helsinki just went a full year without traffic fatalities — here's their secret

In the United States, traffic incidents are a leading cause of death, with an average of 120 people dying every day due to motor vehicle collisions.

On a global scale, a person dies from a road-related accident every 24 seconds.

But Finland’s capital city of Helsinki has pulled off something astonishing — the last recorded traffic-related death was over a year ago, in July 2024
.

Read more... )
haunted_cherries: leona kingscholar's official art from twisted wonderland (leona 2)
Trishelle ([personal profile] haunted_cherries) wrote2025-08-08 05:34 pm

Thought Too Much and Made Myself SAD :D

Not a Reddit post having me feeling self-conscious but anyways please know that you're never obligated to read my stuff, nor am I entitled to your time in such a way. The last thing I want is to share my writing with someone and they didn't like it and didn't know how to tell me/didn't want to tell me out of fear of upsetting me. ; u;

aka "Trishelle GET THE HELL OFF REDDIT" xD
ysabetwordsmith: (moment of silence)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-08-08 06:17 pm

Moment of Silence: Jim Lovell

Astronaut Jim Lovell has passed away. He flew four missions, including the famous Apollo 13 in which the crew narrowly averted disaster.

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill
.
-- Robert Louis Stevenson

Read more... )
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
kaberett ([personal profile] kaberett) wrote2025-08-08 11:58 pm

victory of the day

Today I have got Somewhat Caught Up on last event's lost property Situation. My GREAT TRIUMPH was, partway through the paperwork, going "... I'm sure that brooch in particular is... Oddly... Familiar..."

-- and indeed upon going back through my records it transpires that I HAD RETURNED IT TO ITS PERSON AT THE FIRST EVENT THIS YEAR.

So my spreadsheet is duly updated and they can have it back again at the last event of the year :)

(Some other victories: cut-price overripe strawberries. More of my mother's birthday cake. Rye and caraway and poppyseed bread. the elderly niter kibbeh in the fridge still being Definitely Food and substantially enlivening dinner. Shitposting in the PD crew Discord. Starting Solutions and Other Problems with A, and the cake, and the strawberries.)

azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)
Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 ([personal profile] azurelunatic) wrote2025-08-08 03:44 pm

Disbelief, suspension thereof / therein

Suspension of disbelief = I will not start verbally poking holes in the physics of this action movie until we are out of the movie theater

Suspension in disbelief = a frozen state of constant WTF
pegkerr: (But this is terrible!)
pegkerr ([personal profile] pegkerr) wrote2025-08-08 05:27 pm

2025 52 Card Project: Week 31: Smoke

The weather was so perfect last weekend. Not too humid. No rain. No clouds. Temperature in the upper seventies.

And we couldn't be outside enjoying any of it because smoke from the Canadian wildfires filled the air with choking haze, giving us the second-worst air quality in the entire world. I spent the weekend inside, huddled up close to my HEPA air purifier, furiously resenting that I couldn't be out enjoying my front porch.

The headline in the local paper pretty much summed it up: we're sick of this.

Image description: Background: an urban landscape, barely discernible through a thick layer of smoke. Text reads: 'This summer has been hot, smoky, soggy. Minnesotans are sick of it. Slightly more than half of days since mid-May have featured heavy rain, high heat, bad air or some combination in the Twin Cities. Twin Cities summer weather has dealt miserable conditions.' Below is a graph indicating days with poor weather conditions. Bottom Center: an Oransi air purifier.

Smoke

31 Smoke

Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-08-08 01:45 pm

Birdfeeding

Today is sunny, humid, and hot.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 8/8/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 8/8/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 8/8/25 -- I watered the patio plants and the new picnic table garden.

I picked a red cherry tomato.

EDIT 8/8/25 -- I watered the savanna seedlings.

EDIT 8/8/25 -- I watered the telephone pole garden and the septic garden.

I found a baby preying mantis on the burn barrel and moved it to the barrel garden.

Cicadas and crickets are singing.  I've seen a few fireflies.
 
As it is now dark, I am done for the night.
oursin: China hedgehog and the words It's always more complicated (always more complicated)
oursin ([personal profile] oursin) wrote2025-08-08 06:02 pm

I really, really would lay odds it does not say 'it's all more complicated'

People on bluesky have been sending up the claim that GPT-5 boosts ChatGPT can provide PhD-level expertise.

After all, if you ask me for Mi Xpertise, you are likely to get 'it's complic8ed' and your ear bent with perhaps TMI on the subject, and what the areas of uncertainty are.

Do we not think that it would be more like having an overconfident mansplainer in one's pocket?

This led me to the teasing memory of a quotation, which I have tracked down and found has been researched in considerable depth here: Quote Origin: I Wish I Was As Sure of Any One Thing As He is of Everything.

It's fairly reliably attrib. to Lord Melbourne about the historian Thomas Macaulay (not, we fear, a member of the discipline given to declaring IAMC, sigh). Though it's been ascribed to various about various (funnily enough, all blokes) over the years.

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donutsweeper ([personal profile] donutsweeper) wrote2025-08-08 10:47 am
Entry tags:

How is it August already?

I threw together some Battleship recs for the last two weeks' [community profile] recthething community rec posts (mostly art but a little fic) and just remembered I should share it here too (creators will still be anon until Wednesday):
Art recs:
Carmilla
- Art: Your Sleep Demon (delightfully creepy)

DCU
- Art: Just a little more, Superman... A young Jason helps Clark to safety.(gorgeous, particularly the lighting)

Dracula
- Art: Midnight The scene after Dracula leaves Jonathan and Mina's room. (the emotions in this!)

Dredge (Video Game)
- [Art] Sunset Scene Summary: A small atmospheric piece.(absolutely beautiful, no canon knowledge needed digital art piece)

Moby Dick - Herman Melville
- [Art] The Ghost Hunter AU Summary: No-dialogue comic imagining if the events of the book were loosely adapted into a found footage horror piece centered on Ahab's quest to prove the existence of the spirit Moby-Dick. (so many details in this comic and so well done!)

Original Works
- [Art] She was a fairy This art was inspired by samiabenchaou_ on Instagram. She’s a hijabi fashion influencer. (beautiful)
- A Regency grape angel enjoying some tea with her pets (so sweet)
- Art: Madame Poire A woman wearing a pear-themed historical dress. (wonderfully detailed)
- The Fruit Heist Glorbo, Barry, and Pearry stealing fruits. (All of the teams' mascots and friends, so cute!)
- [art] Glorby Be (Manuscript art! Amazing)
- Battleship 2025: Paper Dolls (A series of paper dolls of Glorbo and others that can be cut out with clothing and whatnot to add, so neat!)
- [Art] The Tower Sumary: A mermaid is... happy to see the lighthouse keeper she's been watching. (beautiful, if slightly creepy charcoal/chalk/pastels on paper piece)
- [Art] Monster in 8B Summary: The shadows aren't cruel. (amazingly creepy)

fic recs:
Eureka/Stargate SG1 crossover
- Bugs in the System Summary: SG-1's visit to Eureka has some unexpected results. (Jack Carter and Sam Carter are cousins and amazing in this)

Leverage/DCU crossover
- https://archiveofourown.org/works/68406316" target="_blank">They Meet Again Summary: At a charity gala, Bruce Wayne meets a beautiful woman he's run into many, many times before. (great Bruce voice and so many neat little details)

Star Trek Lower Decks
- Battlesheep Potemkin Summary: First officer's log, stardate, uh, computer, add the stardate in. The Cerritos is responding to a distress call from the USS Potemkin, an Excelsior-class starship that was exploring the Gra'pe-2025 system. Upon arrival, we found Potemkin adrift in orbit of the third planet, which is currently surrounded by an ion storm. There is no sign of the crew. However, the ship is filled with hundreds of strange mammalian life-forms. (hilarious)

The last team, Lemon, cleared their final board today and those works will go live tomorrow. I will be very interested in hearing from their team (and everyone else) when the feedback post is put up. I don't usually comment on those posts but I might this year, depending on what the mods say in the first place about how the game might change for next year (there was already mention in the discord that the tag count will drop back down to 400 from the 574 of this year which is such a relief). Without some mod changes (or at least issue acknowledgements) I'll have to think very hard about signing up again next year, which is a shame since I'm one of the very few who've done it every year but the things I love about it are starting to be outweighed but what I find stressful or outright dislike. Sigh.

Now that battleship's winding down hopefully I'll have time to tackle a few things on my to-watch and to-read lists. I would really like to get through the official Guardian translation before the Guardian-read-along finishes up but I am just not sure I'll manage it. (And then there's my poor MDL to-watch list. So long despite efforts earlier this year to work my way through it. Somehow, I keep adding to it. Too many good shows/movies out there I guess.) I also have to start thinking about Yuletide and what I'll want to nominate for it.

Crafting-wise I've been working on a blanket my daughter 'commissioned' from me (aka she bought the yarn). I'm about 3 skeins into the 7 I think it'll need for the length she wants. It's turning out nice, but will still take a while to finish. After that (or maybe during a break from that) I need to do another bread/bagel bag rug because my stack of bags is starting to get unwieldly. Not sure what I'll do with it/where I'll put it once I make it, but that's a future me problem. I also have a string bag I was designing that I ran out of crochet thread for that I need to get back to now that I've bought more. (Here's hoping my notes still make sense)

Anyway, hope all of you are doing well and August is being nice to you! :)
ysabetwordsmith: A blue sheep holding a quill dreams of Dreamwidth (Dreamsheep)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-08-08 01:07 am
Entry tags:

Follow Friday 8-8-25: Icons

Today's theme is Icons, a very popular topic on Dreamwidth with several high-traffic communities.

Read more... )
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
oursin ([personal profile] oursin) wrote2025-08-08 09:42 am

(no subject)

Happy birthday, [personal profile] chickenfeet!
malurette: (love)
malurette ([personal profile] malurette) wrote2025-08-08 08:35 am
Entry tags:

[book] The spellshop ~Sarah Beth Durst

Title: The spellshop
Author: Sarah Beth Durst
Language: English
Type: novel
Genre: cozy fantasy

1st release: 2024
Publisher: Tor
Length: 370 pages

Read more... )

That was fucking hilarious! well, with bits of hard stuff too here and there, it's not not entirely cozy.
(i've already pirated the second book and i'm going to go buy my own copy~ )
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-08-07 08:36 pm

Today's Adventures

We went out thrift shopping today.

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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-08-07 08:12 pm
Entry tags:

Inventions

This student's life-changing injury made him realize how 'outdated' traditional casts are. So he 3D-printed a better one
AUG 7, 2025 12:34 PMPT

It’s an injection-molded lattice forearm cast, made with durable Nylon material that is lightweight, fully breathable, and a lot more comfortable than traditional fiberglass casts.

Read more... )
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kaberett ([personal profile] kaberett) wrote2025-08-07 11:53 pm

Redactle-related fact of the day

I did not, until a few hours ago, know that diesel was named after Rudolf Diesel, "... who invented the Diesel engine, which burns Diesel fuel".

(Some cheerful things, in brief: turns out shimmer inks really do work better when you thoroughly scrub the feed of your fountain pen clean at least occasionally; I am excited about tomorrow's bread; I was Greatly Honoured by the Toddler in a truly toddleresque fashion the details of which I shall not go into; I have finally got my act together to order a copy of the Roti King cookbook; glorious comfort reread of a thing I'd totally forgotten was even available for comfort reread, and for bonus points there are new bits!!!)

ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-08-07 05:06 pm

Fossils

Illinois is home to one of the ‘world's best fossil sites': Field Museum

"These fossils tell the story of an ancient inland sea, home to alien-looking plants and animals such as squid-like cephalopods, sea scorpions, and the bizarre-looking state fossil of Illinois, the Tully monster," said the release.
haunted_cherries: A screenshot from the manga version of Jujutsu Kaisen of the character Toge Inumaki (toge mouth)
Trishelle ([personal profile] haunted_cherries) wrote2025-08-07 12:58 pm

The Heatwave Persists but I STAY SILLY

I think it's INCREDIBLY telling that I was stuck on a boss in Persona 5X yesterday and once I put Ren in the party (and actually leveled my good DPS some more xD) we won...I'M JUST SAYIN I might've won that fight on the wings of ReNagi's love I'M JUST SAYIN....

My ship adoration shenanigans aside, I actually managed to get a bit of writing done this week (aka Trishelle was ABSOLUTELY supposed to be working on finishing up OC side stories and instead started drafting a few more ReNagi WIPs like an absolute CLOWN)!! xD We'll honestly see how this goes since I've been hella low energy the last few days, so if I get another "fuck it, we ball" wave, I'm just gonna see how much I can get done in that phase. xD

Also apparently Blaugust is a thing? I might try and participate for a bit! Not like I don't post almost daily as is, but it would be nice to try it and see if I like it, at least! One of my goals for Sunshine Revival WAS to write more, so I don't wanna do Past Me a disservice. xD

Happy Friday eve, folks!! We're almost there!!

ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-08-07 01:24 pm

Birdfeeding

Today is mostly sunny and hot.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 8/7/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 8/7/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 8/7/25 -- I watered the new picnic table and septic gardens.

EDIT 8/7/25 -- I watered the telephone pole garden.

Cicadas and crickets are singing.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.