Also, The Mangar.
Dec. 14th, 2025 01:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kallowayTaking a brief break from building RG Exia to catch up on other things and eat... And I was randomly reminded of a community that I saw advertised the other day. No check-ins, except for needing to fill out a form for every single post. No exclusions except for this stuff that actually excludes a lot of people (and is overly vague)... All these formats allowed, except actually works have to be transformative. (I suspect the mods literally don't know what they're saying there?) Anyway, the initial hook was a good one and perhaps I'll steal it as it's certainly not nailed down.
RG Exia is an interesting build so far. Unlike any kit I have built, ever, the starting point is the legs. But this is also my first RG so perhaps it's a line-specific thing?
I realized earlier that I haven't heard my upstairs neighbor in at least a few days. I can't remember the last time I saw his car, either, so I guess he's headed somewhere warmer for the season. He always used to, and then stopped at one point, and now I can't remember what he's done for the last few years. ^^;;
I'm working on The Mangar again this year. I've finally got it (mostly) de-mossed and painted, and mounted the first set of little LED lights I found. There is a ways to go, but that's fine.
RG Exia is an interesting build so far. Unlike any kit I have built, ever, the starting point is the legs. But this is also my first RG so perhaps it's a line-specific thing?
I realized earlier that I haven't heard my upstairs neighbor in at least a few days. I can't remember the last time I saw his car, either, so I guess he's headed somewhere warmer for the season. He always used to, and then stopped at one point, and now I can't remember what he's done for the last few years. ^^;;
I'm working on The Mangar again this year. I've finally got it (mostly) de-mossed and painted, and mounted the first set of little LED lights I found. There is a ways to go, but that's fine.
The Day in Spikedluv (Saturday, Dec 13)
Dec. 14th, 2025 07:19 amspikedluvI hit Price Chopper and the Bakery while I was downtown. I actually got breakfast at the Bakery this morning and picked up some GCs there, in addition to my weekly order of Boar’s Head deli meat.
I visited mom, did two loads of laundry, hand-washed dishes, went for a couple walks with Pip and the dogs, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, and scooped kitty litter. I stopped at Stewart’s on the way home from mom’s (for gas and milk). I mailed a couple more cards at the Post Office and stopped at the library to pick up a book.
I picked up the poinsettia that I ordered from the school band to support Ireland (Sister A dropped it off at mom’s) and am on a new candle scent for the holiday, pine instead of cookies. *g*
I did not have to cook supper because tonight was the garage Christmas dinner at The Bear’s, which is an awesome restaurant. We’ve been going there for years. The meal is served family style, but starts with an appetizer course and a soup or salad course, and is followed by dessert. We get a platter of prime rib (with potatoes and baby carrots) and a platter of Chateaubriand. (I prefer the prime rib.) [And there are plenty of leftovers for people to take home, so I won't have to cook tomorrow, either!]
I started reading Killing Floor.
Temps started out at 23.0(F) (and went down to 21.7 before I left the house) and reached 36.1 (that I saw). It was pretty nice for the drive to the restaurant.
Mom Update:
Mom was doing okay when I visited. ( more back here )
I visited mom, did two loads of laundry, hand-washed dishes, went for a couple walks with Pip and the dogs, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, and scooped kitty litter. I stopped at Stewart’s on the way home from mom’s (for gas and milk). I mailed a couple more cards at the Post Office and stopped at the library to pick up a book.
I picked up the poinsettia that I ordered from the school band to support Ireland (Sister A dropped it off at mom’s) and am on a new candle scent for the holiday, pine instead of cookies. *g*
I did not have to cook supper because tonight was the garage Christmas dinner at The Bear’s, which is an awesome restaurant. We’ve been going there for years. The meal is served family style, but starts with an appetizer course and a soup or salad course, and is followed by dessert. We get a platter of prime rib (with potatoes and baby carrots) and a platter of Chateaubriand. (I prefer the prime rib.) [And there are plenty of leftovers for people to take home, so I won't have to cook tomorrow, either!]
I started reading Killing Floor.
Temps started out at 23.0(F) (and went down to 21.7 before I left the house) and reached 36.1 (that I saw). It was pretty nice for the drive to the restaurant.
Mom Update:
Mom was doing okay when I visited. ( more back here )
Advent calendar 14
Dec. 14th, 2025 12:08 pmantisoppistDidn't I tell you," answered Mr Beaver, "that she'd made it always winter and never Christmas? Didn't I tell you? Well come and see!"
And then they were all at the top and did see. It was a sledge and it was reindeer with bells on their harness. But they were far bigger than the Witch's reindeer and they were not white but brown. And on the sledege sat a person whom everyone knew the moment they set eyes on him. He was a huge man in a bright red robe (bright as hollyberries) with a hood that had fur inside it and a great white beard that fell like a foamy waterfall over his chest. Everyone knew him because, though you see people of his sort only in Narnia, you see pictures of them and hear them talked about even in our world - the world on this side of the wardrobe door. But when you really see them in Narnia it's rather different. Some of the pictures of Father Christmas in our world make him look only funny and jolly. But now that the childred actually stood looking at him they didn't find it quite like that. He was so big and so glad and so real, that they all became quite still. They felt glad but also solemn.
Interesting Links for 14-12-2025
Dec. 14th, 2025 12:00 pmandrewducker- 1. Looks like the BBC are bullying people out unless they're bigots
- (tags:LGBT bigotry BBC OhForFucksSake )
- 2. Analysis finds "anytime electricity" from solar available as battery costs plummet
- (tags:electricity solarpower batteries )
- 3. Twins reared apart do not exist (The shaky science of genetic determinism)
- (tags:genetics twins iq history psychology )
Tags:
- batteries,
- bbc,
- bigotry,
- electricity,
- genetics,
- history,
- iq,
- lgbt,
- links,
- ohforfuckssake,
- psychology,
- solarpower,
- twins
Wild motion
Dec. 14th, 2025 11:57 amdolorosa_12I've spent this morning at the pool, then fixing hooks to the living room wall from which to hang more string lights (the latest batch were made by hand in Shetland and each light is contained in a little glass, cork-stoppered bottle filled with tiny pieces of sea-glass), and now finally have a bit of spare time in which to write and catch up on Dreamwidth. It's a beautiful, crisp, clear wintry day, and I think Matthias and I will go out for a walk to take in the silvery-blue sky — and I might light the wood-burning stove for the first time this season.
Yesterday I had my final two classes for the year at the gym, which went well, as I was full of energy and determination. I've now been doing them both — power pump (basically lifting weights to music) followed by zumba (the cheesiest dances you can imagine, to the cheesiest music you can imagine; now that it's the lead-up to Christmas the trainer has added her warm-up routine set to a medley of Christmas songs that includes — I kid you not — an EDM-rap remix of 'The Little Drummer Boy') — for three years. The result of this is that I'm very strong, and my endurance and ability to dance in time with music without making mistakes (which have always been reasonably good) are satisfactory, but I still dance like a gymnast. I think I'm stuck with this for life. The hips don't lie, and in spite of it being twenty-plus years since I was a gymnast, some things never leave you, and therefore my hips don't move.
I also finally accepted reality and decided that (in spite of my usual track record) I will leave my contributions to Yuletide this year to my main assignment, plus the one treat I've already written. Usually I aim for at least four fics in the main collection, but I can't say that many of this year's prompts are really calling to me, and I don't think forcing things for the sake of arbitrary personal goals is going to result in decent writing.
That has left more time for reading, although the fact that I got so obsessed with one book this week that I reread it five times in succession (and then I reread it a sixth time yesterday) meant that I've only finished one other book this week: Night Train to Odesa (Jen Stout), a British freelance journalist's memoir of her time in Ukraine during the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion, and the various ordinary people forced to do extraordinary things (in the military, as civilian volunteers, in culture and the arts, over the border in Romania helping the first wave of bewildered and traumatised refugees) that she met. It's a well-told account covering ground with which I'm already familiar from other similar memoirs — raw emotions, injustice and atrocities, people rising with ingenuity, stamina and resilience to meet the moment because the only other option would have been to lie down, surrender, and cease to exist as free people of an independent nation — but I appreciated the features that made it unique. These included Stout's background (a journalist from Shetland who spoke fluent Russian and actually spent the first month of the war on a journalism fellowship in Russia — a surreal experience), and her familiarity with Ukraine (she had spent a lot of time there before, and has a particular love for Kharkiv city, and the frontline Donbas regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, and writes about their landscapes, urban architecture and people with deep affection).
I'm also making my way — for the first time — through The Eagle of the Ninth (Rosemary Sutcliff). Sutcliff is a glaring gap in my reading, and I'm on such a Roman Britain kick that I felt now was a good time to remedy it. Her books seemed like an appropriate winter reading project (the elegiac tone, the stark, austere landscapes), and I'm enjoying this first foray immensely, and wondering why I never tried them before now! (I have a vague memory of being given one book or the other in childhood and finding the dearth of female characters offputting, and that initial impression is probably the culprit for it taking me this long to pick them up.)
( Another December talking meme response )
I hope you've all been having relaxing weekends.
Yesterday I had my final two classes for the year at the gym, which went well, as I was full of energy and determination. I've now been doing them both — power pump (basically lifting weights to music) followed by zumba (the cheesiest dances you can imagine, to the cheesiest music you can imagine; now that it's the lead-up to Christmas the trainer has added her warm-up routine set to a medley of Christmas songs that includes — I kid you not — an EDM-rap remix of 'The Little Drummer Boy') — for three years. The result of this is that I'm very strong, and my endurance and ability to dance in time with music without making mistakes (which have always been reasonably good) are satisfactory, but I still dance like a gymnast. I think I'm stuck with this for life. The hips don't lie, and in spite of it being twenty-plus years since I was a gymnast, some things never leave you, and therefore my hips don't move.
I also finally accepted reality and decided that (in spite of my usual track record) I will leave my contributions to Yuletide this year to my main assignment, plus the one treat I've already written. Usually I aim for at least four fics in the main collection, but I can't say that many of this year's prompts are really calling to me, and I don't think forcing things for the sake of arbitrary personal goals is going to result in decent writing.
That has left more time for reading, although the fact that I got so obsessed with one book this week that I reread it five times in succession (and then I reread it a sixth time yesterday) meant that I've only finished one other book this week: Night Train to Odesa (Jen Stout), a British freelance journalist's memoir of her time in Ukraine during the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion, and the various ordinary people forced to do extraordinary things (in the military, as civilian volunteers, in culture and the arts, over the border in Romania helping the first wave of bewildered and traumatised refugees) that she met. It's a well-told account covering ground with which I'm already familiar from other similar memoirs — raw emotions, injustice and atrocities, people rising with ingenuity, stamina and resilience to meet the moment because the only other option would have been to lie down, surrender, and cease to exist as free people of an independent nation — but I appreciated the features that made it unique. These included Stout's background (a journalist from Shetland who spoke fluent Russian and actually spent the first month of the war on a journalism fellowship in Russia — a surreal experience), and her familiarity with Ukraine (she had spent a lot of time there before, and has a particular love for Kharkiv city, and the frontline Donbas regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, and writes about their landscapes, urban architecture and people with deep affection).
I'm also making my way — for the first time — through The Eagle of the Ninth (Rosemary Sutcliff). Sutcliff is a glaring gap in my reading, and I'm on such a Roman Britain kick that I felt now was a good time to remedy it. Her books seemed like an appropriate winter reading project (the elegiac tone, the stark, austere landscapes), and I'm enjoying this first foray immensely, and wondering why I never tried them before now! (I have a vague memory of being given one book or the other in childhood and finding the dearth of female characters offputting, and that initial impression is probably the culprit for it taking me this long to pick them up.)
( Another December talking meme response )
I hope you've all been having relaxing weekends.
Bush vs. Gore vid
Dec. 14th, 2025 05:59 ambrainwaneHappened across this Bluesky post embedding a TikTok of a vid about Al Gore "losing" the 2000 election to George W. Bush, set to a Sabrina Carpenter song. Enjoyed and wanted to share.
What we know so far about the Brown University shooting
Dec. 15th, 2025 01:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
bbcnewsworld_feedThe identities of those killed or injured have not yet been released, but the university said all the victims were students.
John Cena takes his final bow, after last ever WWE fight
Dec. 14th, 2025 09:15 ambbcnewsworld_feedThe actor and wrestler brought the curtain down on a 24-year career that saw him become one of wrestling's biggest stars.
From booze to black belts: Virginia's drunk raccoon suspected in karate shop break-in
Dec. 13th, 2025 02:11 ambbcnewsworld_feedThe "trashed panda" is also suspected of burglarising snacks from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
We make our own choices, we pay our own prices.
Dec. 14th, 2025 11:23 amgoodbyebirdRec-cember Day 14
Bound
Devil Never Saw the Likes of Us by
It started right on their doorstep. Violet got out of bed Saturday morning and tugged a silk bathrobe up over her shoulders.
It was new. Almost everything she had with her had been bought since they’d left the city, but this was so new she’d had to snap the tags off it before she pulled it on. It had this swirly peacock pattern on it, like streaks of paint, and paint felt sort of like their lucky charm.
She wasn’t much of a cook, but she could add water to a mix like anybody else, and she decided to make blueberry muffins. She liked the little pastel-and-foil cups you put them in to bake: everything had its own little splotch of color. The old apartment had been nothing but black and white and steel, lifeless and cold. This place—their place—was different.
She was just sliding the tray in the oven when she heard the knock.
Episode 2713: Forced Perspective
Dec. 14th, 2025 09:26 amdarths_and_droids_feed
X marks the spot.
You need to give the PCs a clue to a very specific location, where they will find the Important Thing they need to find. Here are some possibilities:
- A musical instrument (or a sword) that hums when near the Thing and gets louder when pointed the right direction or when closer.
- A direction finder that uses quantum entanglement to track the location of a paired device which is always an equal distance from the Thing and on the other side of it.
- A tattoo that shifts and slithers on the skin, pointing in the correct direction.
- Directions are revealed in dreams, in a landscape that partially matches reality, but leaves some spatial relationships ambiguous.
- Enchanted boots that walk towards the Thing. Better not lose sight of them!
- An augmented reality phone app that overlays location clues onto the streetscape.
- A magical guide animal (like a stag, or an owl) that leads the way. But only if treated with respect.
- A crystal that refracts starlight into an illuminated map. It rotates with the stars, so you need to read it at the right time.
- Giant statues point the way. Except some of them are crumbled and the arms have fallen off, so they need to be reconstructed somehow.
aurilee writes:
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
Vast and decaying industrial landscape? I can't quite tell if that's accurate yet, but I think I can call that a half win. An ecumenopolis ruin should still be a lot taller and obviously building like in places I think. And less wet.
Matching the MacGuffin to a silhouette? That sounds like a neat, or at least common, video game action. As a movie action, somewhat less so for some reason? Maybe because while they're both rely on coincidental layouts and points of view, there's nothing to really do or see until the person doing the looking figures something out. Plus, it can't take too long, otherwise it's just pointless screen time. I think perhaps if I was going to set something like this up, I'd have it be a Force-related thing where there's like a magnetic pull towards that location on the surface. And I'd make it obvious that it's not a one-off event by having lots of other crashed and wrecked ships around where the Falcon crashes down. That'd also neatly explain why the ship crashed to begin with!
Anyway, lava-sharks are so not realistic. How can they see through the lava to hunt?
Transcript
'Never give up': Belarusian prisoners celebrate release after US lifts sanctions
Dec. 14th, 2025 06:18 pmbbcnewsworld_feed"It's a feeling of incredible happiness," says political prisoner Maria Kolesnikova, freed after more than five years.
Five arrested over plot to attack German Christmas market
Dec. 14th, 2025 08:46 ambbcnewsworld_feedLocal media says one of the suspects is an imam at a mosque, and police allege he "called for a vehicle attack".
Angry fans throw chairs and bottles at Messi event in India
Dec. 13th, 2025 08:29 pmbbcnewsworld_feedThe Inter Miami and Argentina forward is in India for a tour, taking in events in Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi.
Wake up, Dead Man! (Film Review)
Dec. 14th, 2025 10:02 amselenakAka the third Benoit Blanc mystery plotted and directed by Rian Johnson. Now, each of these movies has a main character who is not Blanc whose fate and/or motivation to solve the mystery is at the heart of the story - Martha in Knives Out and Helen in Glass Onion respectively - and in this case it's Father Jud, played (well and movingly) by Josh O'Connor. In each case, the movie's structure harks back to the classic age of detective mysteries with various twists and turns and a grand denouemonet while also commenting on the here and now in its social satire. If Glass Onion among other things went for the tech bros and the self satisfied "disruptors", Wake up, Dead Man! is very much about the US under the Orange Menace despite his name not mentioned even once. And lo and behold - it even offers hope. And hey, there is even a Star Wars gag. (Just for the record, I still stand by The Last Jedi being the only one of the sequel movies which actually tries to do something new and creative with the franchise. #RianJohnsonwasRight . The gag has nothing to do with that at all, though.)
( Vague spoilers have to offer from their own free will in order for it to mean something )
( Vague spoilers have to offer from their own free will in order for it to mean something )
He was an Uber driver in the US. Now he's scared of jihadists after deportation to Somalia
Dec. 14th, 2025 01:05 ambbcnewsworld_feedAs some Somali migrants fear what might happen next, the BBC speaks to one deportee in Mogadishu.
'A nightmare' - The battle over Warner Bros is turning Hollywood upside down
Dec. 14th, 2025 12:37 ambbcnewsworld_feedInterviews with dozens of actors, producers and camera crews reveal an industry attempting to weigh the lesser of two horrible choices.
One million households without power in Ukraine after Russia attacks energy grid
Dec. 13th, 2025 12:43 pmbbcnewsworld_feedThe latest overnight attacks come as US envoy Steve Witkoff prepares to hold more talks with Ukraine's president.
Random perspectives in time
Dec. 14th, 2025 12:11 ammuccamukkEighty years before this year, WWII ended.
Eighty years before WWII ended, the American Civil War ended.
So we are as far away from (or as close to) WWII, as the people in WWII were from (or to) the Civil War.
IDK, it's interesting to think about. Something Elizabeth Samet has written about, a bit, too.
I only wrote a very short version of that fic where Steve Rogers was a civil war vet, who was frozen until Tony from Iron Man Noir found him, but I was always fond of that idea.
Eighty years before WWII ended, the American Civil War ended.
So we are as far away from (or as close to) WWII, as the people in WWII were from (or to) the Civil War.
IDK, it's interesting to think about. Something Elizabeth Samet has written about, a bit, too.
I only wrote a very short version of that fic where Steve Rogers was a civil war vet, who was frozen until Tony from Iron Man Noir found him, but I was always fond of that idea.
Manhunt continues after two killed in shooting at Brown University
Dec. 14th, 2025 05:34 ambbcnewsworld_feedThe gunman is at large after opening fire in a building where exams were taking place at the campus in Providence, Rhode Island.
Twin Cities history: 1980s, ARA (Anti-Racist Action), Baldies, punk, music, Uptown
Dec. 14th, 2025 01:32 amelisem Um.
I tried to write an intro for this, but all I can do is gesture incoherently. No, I wasn't a Baldy, I wasn't a skinhead, but the milieu affected my life for Reasons. If you watch this documentary it may give you a better understanding of (some of) what made Minneapolis in the 80s what it was. Or maybe you were there too, and this will be an interesting tour of byegone days.
I really want to get together and share stories of those times. For now, here, have a pretty good documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=8BSDZ1DIEIQ
I tried to write an intro for this, but all I can do is gesture incoherently. No, I wasn't a Baldy, I wasn't a skinhead, but the milieu affected my life for Reasons. If you watch this documentary it may give you a better understanding of (some of) what made Minneapolis in the 80s what it was. Or maybe you were there too, and this will be an interesting tour of byegone days.
I really want to get together and share stories of those times. For now, here, have a pretty good documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=8BSDZ1DIEIQ
