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If/when
Sep. 24th, 2025 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fayanoraI hope, if/when we get out of this fascist rut we're in, that one of the things that gets done in the aftermath of fixing all the damage is that the Republican party is disbanded, all politicians who were Republicans are barred from any and all public offices for the rest of their lives, we disband the Democrats as well for being ineffectual do-nothings while the ship was sinking, create or promote a bunch of third parties to take their places, and establish mandatory ranked-choice voting. Under the new system, it would be a crime punishable by a steep fine to NOT vote, and you would be able to not just vote FOR someone, but also AGAINST candidates, ranking your votes from "Yes I want this person very much" to "under no circumstances should this person be allowed in office," and everything in between.
The Rapture with a twist
Sep. 24th, 2025 11:43 amfayanoraThe rapture comes, and all the worst people are taken. Suddenly no more fascists, no more bigots, no more hypocritical Christians. Goddess leaves a message for the rest of us afterwards: "I took some bad apples out of your population and fed their souls to my pet crocodile. You're welcome."
What I'm Doing Wednesday
Sep. 24th, 2025 12:52 pmsagebooks
Pawn in Frankincense (The Lymond Chronicles #4) by Dorothy Dunnett. 1969. cw: graphic violence, child abuse and murder, slavery, animal harm and death, going cold turkey off opium. Quite the adventure drama.
The Summer War by Naomi Novik. 2025. Novella. Would have made a pretty amazing novel, tbh. I loved the first 2/3rds, though I wish, as always with NN, that there had been more to the ending. I hope YT brings some fic for it.
yarning & etsy & usps
I went to yarn group Sunday and had a good time. Also, I cut my hair right before yarn group and I got nice comments on it, so that was extra happy-making. Then I showed off pics of my soccer ball-sized globe (and complained about the pattern not giving accurate Mediterranean or Australia, doh). Also worked on a navy blue kickbunny, which sold Monday afternoon right after I got back from the post office, where I was shipping a tan kickbunny to a customer, a blue bunny to Kitten Academy, and the globe to Niece, along with a moon and a bday card with a bright happy sun on it, so it was all of a theme. But dear god the increase in USPS prices! Nearly $3 more, and (since they moved to PA) KA isn't even as far! At least one was a business expense and another was prepaid by the customer. (This is why I don't offer free shipping on kickbunnies.) Anyway, I'm working on a turquoise kickbunny now and feeling super grateful that my shoulder is functional again. Knock wood.
yuletide FYIs
Here is the link to the Noms Coordination Station. And here is the Noms Spreadsheet, where you can skim fandoms to see what's been nommed while we wait for the tagset to open. I replaced my nom for Katee Roberts' Dark Olympus series with Shakespeare & Jacobean Theatre RPF bc Will/Kit(/Annie) still owns my heart. And I changed my character noms for The Shadow of the Leviathan series by Robert Jackson Bennett. Noms close in the wee hours of Friday, US time. I still have no idea what I want to offer/request, but at least I've done my nominations?
#resist
October 18: No Kings Day 2
I hope you're all doing well and enjoying Fall/Spring wherever you are! <333
Pawn in Frankincense (The Lymond Chronicles #4) by Dorothy Dunnett. 1969. cw: graphic violence, child abuse and murder, slavery, animal harm and death, going cold turkey off opium. Quite the adventure drama.
The Summer War by Naomi Novik. 2025. Novella. Would have made a pretty amazing novel, tbh. I loved the first 2/3rds, though I wish, as always with NN, that there had been more to the ending. I hope YT brings some fic for it.
yarning & etsy & usps
I went to yarn group Sunday and had a good time. Also, I cut my hair right before yarn group and I got nice comments on it, so that was extra happy-making. Then I showed off pics of my soccer ball-sized globe (and complained about the pattern not giving accurate Mediterranean or Australia, doh). Also worked on a navy blue kickbunny, which sold Monday afternoon right after I got back from the post office, where I was shipping a tan kickbunny to a customer, a blue bunny to Kitten Academy, and the globe to Niece, along with a moon and a bday card with a bright happy sun on it, so it was all of a theme. But dear god the increase in USPS prices! Nearly $3 more, and (since they moved to PA) KA isn't even as far! At least one was a business expense and another was prepaid by the customer. (This is why I don't offer free shipping on kickbunnies.) Anyway, I'm working on a turquoise kickbunny now and feeling super grateful that my shoulder is functional again. Knock wood.
yuletide FYIs
Here is the link to the Noms Coordination Station. And here is the Noms Spreadsheet, where you can skim fandoms to see what's been nommed while we wait for the tagset to open. I replaced my nom for Katee Roberts' Dark Olympus series with Shakespeare & Jacobean Theatre RPF bc Will/Kit(/Annie) still owns my heart. And I changed my character noms for The Shadow of the Leviathan series by Robert Jackson Bennett. Noms close in the wee hours of Friday, US time. I still have no idea what I want to offer/request, but at least I've done my nominations?
#resist
October 18: No Kings Day 2
I hope you're all doing well and enjoying Fall/Spring wherever you are! <333
Don't read this if you're easily queazed
Sep. 22nd, 2025 08:01 pmfayanoraI just watched the most vile recipe ever made by a person. This bloke made a mushroom parfait! I thought I had misheard, or that parfait means something different in Britain, but no. The man actually made a parfait -- basically ice cream -- out of pureed mushrooms and onion. I'm gonna go vomit now.
I mean, I like mushrooms and onions. But as a parfait? This man is clearly insane and needs to be stopped.
Link, if you're morbidly curious: here.
Tags I used when posting this to Tumblr:
I mean, I like mushrooms and onions. But as a parfait? This man is clearly insane and needs to be stopped.
Link, if you're morbidly curious: here.
Tags I used when posting this to Tumblr:
I fucking hate ads
Sep. 22nd, 2025 06:06 pmfayanoraThe ads on the various games on my phone have gotten unbearable. I was fine with them when it was just the tiny X you had to hit. Now what I end up having to do is pressing a link reading "Google Play store" and then I have to hit the back button at the exact right amount of time after clicking that for it to go back into the app, and if I'm lucky, it will then bring up the X to click. More often than not, though, what it does instead is restart the fucking app! Which means restarting the level I was on if I'm especially unlucky, or if I'm just mildly unlucky, any reward that I might have gotten for watching the ad is just fucking gone.
I need to find out if there's an app I can install on my phone that will kill all of the ads or at least put them back to the way they were when it was just pressing the X. Because before this change, I could put up with the ads pretty much indefinitely. But now it's to the point where I get maybe a half hour of play time in before I just fucking give up in frustration.
I need to find out if there's an app I can install on my phone that will kill all of the ads or at least put them back to the way they were when it was just pressing the X. Because before this change, I could put up with the ads pretty much indefinitely. But now it's to the point where I get maybe a half hour of play time in before I just fucking give up in frustration.
Update
Sep. 22nd, 2025 05:26 pmfayanoraI I've gotten well enough that the cough is almost completely gone and more importantly I have been writing again! I've gotten two chapters done in the last two days, and a third may be in the works tomorrow.
What's been helping is that these are "dueling tournament" chapters, so there's a lot of excitement from various featured duels.
What's been helping is that these are "dueling tournament" chapters, so there's a lot of excitement from various featured duels.
Guarded good news
Sep. 22nd, 2025 09:30 amdrglam My boss has pulled off a miracle, and found some funding. My job (and FlyBase) is safe for the next year.
We're still waiting to find out whether the grant is reinstated. Our Cambridge UK site (also safe for a year) will have to do some scrambling, as current government policies have cut off international funding for grants.
We've lost a lot of people at Harvard; a retired curator who was doing a few hours a week, our New Mexico curator, and one of our sysadmins were let go at the end of August (plus we'd laid off the senior curator and senior developer just before the current nightmare). Our project manager was let go by Harvard a couple of weeks ago. The other remaining curator and one of our two developers are leaving in mid-October, as they are feeling too burned out and traumatized to keep going, so they've accepted layoff. We're left with one curator (me), one developer, and one (.6 FTE) sysadmin.
Cambridge and Indiana aren't (yet) losing people. There's three full-time developers at IU, and a lot of curators (no devs) at Cambridge, half of whom were not funded under the main FlyBase grant.
We're still waiting to find out whether the grant is reinstated. Our Cambridge UK site (also safe for a year) will have to do some scrambling, as current government policies have cut off international funding for grants.
We've lost a lot of people at Harvard; a retired curator who was doing a few hours a week, our New Mexico curator, and one of our sysadmins were let go at the end of August (plus we'd laid off the senior curator and senior developer just before the current nightmare). Our project manager was let go by Harvard a couple of weeks ago. The other remaining curator and one of our two developers are leaving in mid-October, as they are feeling too burned out and traumatized to keep going, so they've accepted layoff. We're left with one curator (me), one developer, and one (.6 FTE) sysadmin.
Cambridge and Indiana aren't (yet) losing people. There's three full-time developers at IU, and a lot of curators (no devs) at Cambridge, half of whom were not funded under the main FlyBase grant.
They checked it
Sep. 21st, 2025 05:37 pmazurelunaticThe worst part of colonoscopy prep turned out to be the sheer number of trips to the bathroom, which knotted up my legs something fierce. The second worst part was the taste of the solution, even with added flavorings. It was salty! (I got the huge jug rather than the Miralax version. Miralax at least isn't salty.) Next time, probably either green unsweetened Kool-Aid or lemonade Crystal Lite or whatever.
( Off topic for FFA )
I did make the planned gallon of orange jello, but since it was a little late for me to actually eat it, I put mandarin orange slices in it. Since that's often part of Belovedest's lunch. Today I packed it into smaller boxes to help with that effort and to decrease the crowding in the fridge.
I got a slight nap after everything was about finished. The split prep schedule meant that I started the second half around 12:30 am. Appointment check in time 6 am.
The distance in the facility wasn't super bad, although we brought my chair just in case. (Speaking of the chair, I have decked it out with retroreflective tape and electroluminescent wire. It looks much safer. The cup holder went on Friday.)
( The procedure wasn't bad. )
I got dressed again. I had picked a cute nightgown for the outing, black with flowers and butterflies. Instead of a coat (it's getting chilly at night) I wore my dramatic black velvet robe, the one with lace trim and bell sleeves. I received a compliment. And as soon as I proved I could stand up without excessive wobbling, we were off.
Belovedest gathered breakfast for me on our way home, and I took a much needed nap (interrupted a few times to confirm that I could be made conscious and accept hydration).
And that was that.
We did our usual Friday shopping on Saturday. I was still sore. Today my legs are thankfully feeling normal.
( Off topic for FFA )
I did make the planned gallon of orange jello, but since it was a little late for me to actually eat it, I put mandarin orange slices in it. Since that's often part of Belovedest's lunch. Today I packed it into smaller boxes to help with that effort and to decrease the crowding in the fridge.
I got a slight nap after everything was about finished. The split prep schedule meant that I started the second half around 12:30 am. Appointment check in time 6 am.
The distance in the facility wasn't super bad, although we brought my chair just in case. (Speaking of the chair, I have decked it out with retroreflective tape and electroluminescent wire. It looks much safer. The cup holder went on Friday.)
( The procedure wasn't bad. )
I got dressed again. I had picked a cute nightgown for the outing, black with flowers and butterflies. Instead of a coat (it's getting chilly at night) I wore my dramatic black velvet robe, the one with lace trim and bell sleeves. I received a compliment. And as soon as I proved I could stand up without excessive wobbling, we were off.
Belovedest gathered breakfast for me on our way home, and I took a much needed nap (interrupted a few times to confirm that I could be made conscious and accept hydration).
And that was that.
We did our usual Friday shopping on Saturday. I was still sore. Today my legs are thankfully feeling normal.
