I decided it would be more interesting, fun, and evergreen to write CNBC explains 'How America Got Hooked On Cars,' a driving update.

Just finished: Nothing.

Currently reading: A Drop Of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett. This continues to be really fun. I wish there was more Ana, but her more distant presence in this is balanced by just how weird and gross the worldbuilding is. All magic in this world is drawn from the blood of leviathans, giant eldritch horrors that live in the sea and during the wet season, come on shore to try to kill everyone, and the murder plot revolves much more around the technicalities of this than the first book did. I'm here for weird body horror and squishy stuff so this works for me.

I am a wee bit confused over Din's motivations; he wants to join the Legion, which is the division of the military that blows up leviathans, rather than investigating crimes with Ana, which is a fairly major switch from the first book. But he can't do it because he's deep in debt to an insurer who covered his now-dead father's medical bills, and the job is so dangerous that the insurer would never be able to collect. Which, do not get me wrong, is a cool motivation! But it does seem like a break from the way his character is initially presented, and so far the only reason for the switch seems to be that he hooked up with a soldier at the end of the first book.

Anyway I just got to the part where he goes inside the Shroud, which is a giant cyst in the water where they extract leviathan blood, inhabited by augurs, who are altered to be incredibly good at working with vast amounts of data but go insane after three years and can only communicate by tapping. It's super cool.

Tuesday was a long day. Busy, but not terrible, but I had forgotten that we had our team meeting last night. As a result, my day spanned from 8am-6:30pm. It was a lot.

I did learn that the head of Outpatient Radiology has a high opinion of me. We had a patient that needed to be called, a VIP who was a close personal friend of our largest donor. And Peg specifically asked our manager, A to have me call them. So of course I did. And I was at my most sweet and courteous and informative. And the pt apparently called them back to tell the administration that I was just so kind and professional, and I made it so easy to make the appt, and answered all her questions and gave her tips on where to park and all. She also mentioned that at first, she thought the machine was calling her, because I have a voice that should be used for that kind of thing. So, Peg sent me a lovely note thanking me for it. It was very much a nothingburger, but slightly stressful with the donor hanging over my head. I'm not sure how I feel about being volunteered for tribute, but whatever.

The meeting was long and painful. Mostly just reminding people to do what they're supposed to be doing. You know, don't go into the status to send an email, sit there for 20 minutes and then send one sentence. They did debut a look at our new phone system, which is a VOIP. Thanks, I hate it. It's clunky and I don't think it's going to do what we need it to. Worse, it incorporates Copilot to transcribe the conversation as you're talking. And, eventually, that'll be how they score all the calls--with AI. This is going to be a clusterfuck. We've got about a month and a half til that all comes down.

I just have to mention how proud I am of my spouse. Jess has been working on a queer sword and sorcery book for about a year. They had stalled, but now they're back to writing furiously (3000+ words yesterday!) and I'm just really proud of how much work they've done. The end is in sight! Another few days, and they should have a rough draft done. We talked about the blocking for the climatic scene, and how to make it cinematic, and I think it's going to be excellent. I sent them Youtub videos of the Highlander the Series sword fights, so that they could see how a longsword battle can look. (What a chore, it made me look at Methos videos...) They were excellent at blocking things to make them look really good. I hope it's helpful when they start writing the final duel today.

Today, thankfully, I do not have any meetings, I can get off at 4:30 and take a nap. I'm trying to decide what to do for dinner. Last night, since I had to work late, Jess cooked pork chops. I've got stir fry strips out for dinner, but I need to decide if I'm doing Korean BBQ or if want to go all out and cook fajitas with homemade tortillas. Either could be good. I just have to make up my mind. I cleaned and oiled the cast iron pan if I go for the fajitas. I kind of need to decide, so I can marinate the beef strips for most of the day. I do love making tortillas, so I may go with that, even though it's a lot of work. But we'll see. I also love Korean BBQ. I'm just trying to decide which I want more. Either way, I'll be chopping up a bit of onions. If I do the tortillas, I'll need to order some guac, cheese and sour cream. I think I have everything for the BBQ.

I think I really want to do the fajitas, so I'll probably go with that.

Still no movement on the job front. I was busy enough that I didn't get a moment to ask Amanda about my pre-offer priorities. I'll try to do that today, if she has a few minutes between meetings.

Oh! They 100% called me out during our meetings. One of the things they mentioned again was using the template for emails to make it easier to just copy and paste. And they showed where the template was, and then reminded everyone that I had unlocked the mystic arts of the email signature, and had me send out the document I had made showing how to do it. Yet again, I felt like Prometheus, bringing fire to the mortals.

I worry sometimes that people are going to think I've got a swelled head, or that they'll resent me. On paper, I'm the same as them, but it's pretty obvious that I do way more than the standard. I get called on to call their patients back, and to fill in cardiacs, and I spend as much time in unavailable status as I do on the phone. I just don't want anyone to feel resentful or feel that I think I'm better than them. (I patently am, but I don't want anyone to not like me because of it--the joy of rejection sensitive ADHD!)

At Jess' suggestion, I have made a new google calendar for my schoolwork, so I can add in my deadlines. It seems like they're pretty limited-we get the assignments for the week on Thursday, and they're due on the next Wednesday night. Each class is 9 weeks, with a final exam at the end. I'm hoping I haven't lost my touch with testing. I used to be very good at taking tests. Since my semester starts in April, it means I am going to have to do some work on the cruise. But I get up early, so I should have time to knock out both my morning post and some studying before we start the day. I can sit on the balcony with my coffee and pastry and do my assigned reading and write my paper while the whales go by. I'm only taking one class, so it shouldn't be that bad. I know I'll have time on Sunday, since that's a sea day. Maybe I'll do some work on the plane on the way there, if the assignments are out when we leave. That'll be a few weeks into the class, so I'll know how best to manage it, and how much time I'll need to devote.

I also registered for the Johns Hopkins Tuition Reimbursement site, so I'll be ready to submit everything when April rolls around.

Okay, time for me to do my thing. Everyone have an amazing Hump Day!

Dafoanairi saw Tania running up. “What’s wrong?” she asked as she held her staff in a ready manner.

“I was in the park, and then there was someone following me,” Tania explained.

“There is someone nearby. It could be one of those agents,” the Enigma said.

“Agents?” Tania asked.

“Oscorp, intimidating the hero vigilantes by having them followed,” Dafoanairi answered.

“As if people in Lawndale aren’t on edge enough!” Tania responded. “What’s your plan?”

“We were doing our usual late-night patrolling and rescuing,” Dafoanairi snarked. “But if you want to go home, we can take you there.”


Tania thought for a moment. ‘It’s probably a good idea to go home.’ But she did also enjoy the occasional night with the two heroes as they did what they did. ‘And they seem mismatched, but they work.’

“Tania?” Dafoanairi asked.

“Not yet,” Tania said.

“We were headed to the Giant Strawberry,” the Enigma said.

“It is a good lookout spot,” Tania said. “But on a cloudy night like this?”

“Things can still be seen,” Dafoanairi said.


At the Strawberry, the town still seemed quiet, but the Enigma was able to spot some agents as they jumped from rooftop to rooftop downtown. “That’s about four or five so far,” she said after fifteen minutes.

“Four or five too many,” Dafoanairi murmured.

“It’s not like you can fight them all,” Tania said.

“A war between the heroes and Oscorp wouldn’t be good for Lawndale,” the Enigma said. She thought about her encounter with the agent an hour before, and the damage she did to the that house. ‘More buildings damaged, but at least it got off a lot better than the Lawndale Center.’

“That’s an understatement,” Dafoanairi said.

“So, what will you do about it?” Tania asked.

“Not sure yet,” Dafoanairi admitted. “But we can’t just lie low. That won’t be good for Lawndale either, and it would be like admitting defeat.”

( Read More )

The Owl House is fantasy-horror-comedy, which means the main plot is mostly fantasy-comedy, but there are a bunch of horror-comedy jokes that are never really addressed and would make the Boiling Isles look like an absolute hellhole if you took them seriously. This fic, The Angel of the Owl House, does its best to explain away or modify all these jokes so the setting becomes just fantasy-comedy. The one thing it cannot get rid of is all the cannibalism. It ends up just going "It's a different culture, and they do things differently. They don't kill wantonly, but eating what you kill is normal here."

No Sunday entertainment feature today
Still no Sunday entertainment feature

At least I'm back now.

We survived Monday! Whoohoo, go us!

Work was purely chaotic. We had an immense call volume, and I was getting emails every few minutes asking me to do something else. I don't know if they have forgotten that I haven't gotten the new job and new pay yet, but goddamn, I felt like I was going in 10 directions at once. I got it all done, but it was a lot. I need someone to tell me which I should prioritize, because I feel like I'm letting my team down by not helping on the phones as much (Though I took 33 calls), but I've got to get these patients in, too. I just need a little clarification.

Today will probably be psycho too, but we'll see. Usually Monday and Tuesday are the worst, and then it dwindles a little through the week, though it's never light. I may clarify with Amanda what my primary focus should be.

Tomorrow is payday and that'll be nice. I have bills to pay this week. There's rent and phone and various little things that come at the beginning of the month. So I'll take care of that on Wednesday, when I get paid.

I purchased Office 365 in preparation for college yesterday and downloaded it. I like googledocs, and I'll still probably use it for most of my stuff, but I learned on Word, so I have a fondness. My term starts on 4/9, so I've got a little time to prepare. Between now and then, I'm going to start working on my math skills. Youtube is a helpful resource that I didn't have in high school as is Khan University. I think I'll be okay? I don't ever expect to be a math savant. I don't expect to be able to figure out the secret language of numbers, but if I can manipulate them and solve for X that's all that matters. I just need a C in the class.

I'm having a little pie in the sky about finishing my bachelors and maybe considering a master's degree. Not saying I can't. Hopkins would pay for it, and I feel like I'm smart enough to do it. I just don't know that I need it. I guess we'll see how much I like academia.

I need to curate a playlist of instrumental music that I can have on while studying. I've already found a bunch of orchestral covers of Ghost songs, which sound like a strong start. After all, I can trace a line from their concerts to my current list of upcoming things. Getting to go to the concert (Ritual) was really empowering.

It's funny, for a band who's music is supposedly Satanic, their music is very hopeful. There's a song of theirs called The Future is a Foreign Land that is about the future being better. And even songs like He Is which is a song about Satan, is at it's core about community and belonging. And Peacefield is possibly one of the most hopeful songs I know. It's a "yes, right now things suck, but hold out, it'll get better." And right now, we all need that.

When I'm stressed out, I put on my earphones and have some emotional support Ghost and Hazbin Hotel and it relaxes me and makes me feel better, and I can't really ask for more than that.

Tomorrow, it's supposed to be 50 degrees, so I'm hoping that I won't have to clean off my car when I go out again. I'm going to have to request a refill on my clindamycin. It's working, but slowly. Each day, it's a bit better, and the swelling goes down a bit, but it's not quite there yet. The yeast infection is going to be epic (It already is.)

Next week, my sister is going up to NYC for work for the whole week. This means that I'll be sleeping with the dog for the week, which is sad. I love my puppers, but I miss snuggling Jess. On the other hand, that's a bunch of nights where we can watch TV in the evenings and have quality time during the day. It also probably means we're not going to be able to get away on the weekend of the 7th, but we'll figure out another time. Maybe the weekend of the 28th. We don't seem to have any games planned then.

This is apparently going to be a thing that happens now and then, so I might as well get used to it. It's really not a big deal, just means that I'm going to be sleep deprived for a couple of days until I get used to her bed and a dog kicking me.

So I might as well enjoy this week in my own bed. I don't spend enough time there. Maybe we can watch some more of The Pitt in it. I want to watch more of that.

I might as well work on The Pitt and Heated Rivalry, since there's not a whole lot of movies coming out in the near future that I'm wildly interested in. I might do Project Hail Mary and the rerelease of the Mummy, but the first one I'm really excited for is Mortal Kombat on May 8th.

Of course, we'll be in Vancouver when that releases. I'm seriously considering going to an evening showing the night before we board the ship. We'll see how tired I am from the day of sightseeing. Knowing us, we'll do that til about 3, and then go back to the hotel to rest. So we might be good for a movie. Stupid action movies are better with a first weekend crowd.

I had an Advocate magazine add pop up about the least expensive cities with good gay enclaves. One of them was Old Chinatown in Portland, which seemed really cool. Maybe in a few years, when the BIL's mother has passed, we'd consider moving. And the Pacific Northwest has always seemed like a good place to go. They have strong protections for LGBTQ+ people and the weather is nice. I also thought about Seattle, but good lord, it's so expensive.

Okay, time for me to go forth and get myself together. Everyone have a stupendous Tuesday!

This is up late, & I thought maybe this scene wasn't ready yet. But I like trying to more or less post on a schedule, so this is my Monday post.

Pony plushies are apparently a status symbol at cons, but they're expensive for obvious reasons. But luckily there are patterns online to make one at home? I'm not sure if I want to get into sewing, but I'm curious how easy/hard a very small one would be to make.

https://make.smol.horse/ (I can't archive this, but I saved an offline copy of the pdf.)

https://imgur.com/a/tiny-pone-ep-pattern-K4L3Q (archive)

derpibooru.org/images/152249
https://www.deviantart.com/cavelupa/art/Updated-Pony-Plush-Pattern-337440530 (archive)

Thinking about using the access-only features to post about serious and more private things, like the room party I had last weekend. I figured I was going to have an "anyone who adds me to their circle gets added to mine" but I haven't gotten around to it. So I guess you can comment/ask if you want to see more personal and less mundane postings. I mainly have meta related stuff in mind.

And we're back to Monday. It's snowy out, but thankfully we seemed to miss most of the snowpocalypse. It looks like maybe 3" if I'm being generous. It'll keep the kids out of school, but not much else. I'm really happy that it's not going to fuck up our routine for days, but that tiny part of me that's still a 5 year old is like "That's not real snow." Mostly, I'm happy that the dog won't be upset by it. He won't like the bit that there is, but he'll probably still do his business.

I forgot to mention that on Saturday night, we watched the first episode of The Pitt. I keep getting clips from it on TikTok, so I finally decided to take the plunge. One show, and I'm already hooked. Really excellent. I think that'll be a new thing for us, settling in and watching an episode now and then. I know season 2 just came out, so that'll give us plenty of episodes to watch.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I got up relatively late and then relaxed until gametime. We did get breakfast/brunch sushi, which was very good, or so I'm told. The antibiotics are messing with my tastes, so sometimes things just don't taste right. So really, anything I say about food can be taken with a grain of salt for the moment. It tasted okay, just not quite what I was expecting. We found a place that does not fuck around with the tobiko. When you ask for fish eggs on your California roll they put great heaping spoonfuls. It was glorious. Despite not being quite right, I'll probably have some of the leftover rolls for breakfast.

Then, it was onto game, which was super fun. My character got to showcase her temper a bit, punching a classmate for being a racist twat. It didn't matter that said character had also tried to trip my character. They're long standing rivals, and that's a matter of course. But get racist with her tiefling and firbolg friends, and she's going to forget that she has magic and throw hands.

It lost our team 10 class points, but fortunately, the racist's friend came up and shoved my character, who oversold that shit like Shawn Michaels against Hulk Hogan, so they lost points too.

It probably escalated things with our rivals, but sometimes, you just gotta punch someone.

After that, I piddled around for a while before I realized that the beef I took out for dinner was not anywhere near defrosted, so I ordered pasta. It was very good, and the stuffed shells tasted perfectly correct.

After dinner, as I was perusing the internet, I found an add for an online college. I've been thinking lately that this promotion I'm about to get will probably be my last, because I don't have a college degree, and considering going back to school. The thing that made me hesitate is the money. But we have some money now, and I have tuition reimbursement, so I could 100% do it.

I just don't know if I can. I'm not strong in math--I may need remedial classes to get me ready for algebra, but we'll see.

Anyway, I looked at this college, wondered if it was too good to be true and dug further. Turns out they're fully accredited, and legit. Probably not the most prestigious, but I don't have the time for prestigious, I just need a degree. So, I signed up.

It's called University of the People, and it's a tuitionless college. You pay an application fee, and you pay for your assessments at the end of the classes. The complete BA will cost me $6600. The degree transfers, and should I want to, my last semester, I could go to Edinburgh or Canada to study. (I won't, but it's cool.) So, come Summer, I'll be a part time student. I'm nervous, but excited. It's kinda weird to think that in a few short months, I'll be writing papers and doing tests. I'm probably going to start with one class, just to get my feet wet. and then from there if I feel like I can take more, I will. It might take me til 60 to get my degree, but I was planning to work til I'm at least 65, maybe later. We'll see.

There's one dude online who has a serious hate boner for the college, but PBS and other outlets have covered it and acknowleged that it's a real college with real degrees. I'll be sharing classrooms with people from around the world, including a 10% refugee enrollment, and some women studying at home secretly under the Taliban's restrictions about higher education for women. Most people seem very happy about their schooling, though they agree that it's what you make of it. Online can be tough, so I'm' going to need to be at the top of my game.

Who knows, maybe I'll like it so much that I'll go for my masters. We'll see. I'd probably switch my masters to Health Administration. I don't really want to be in charge of anything clinical, I want to be in charge of people. But the nice thing is that I do have tuition reimbursement if I'm doing something that will benefit my career with Hopkins, so in the end, the only thing that I'll pay is the application fee (and of course if I fail a course, I'm going to be paying for the test I failed.).

I'm a little confused, since my materials say the semester starts in April, but my orientation is in May/June. So we'll see how that works. If classes start in April, I'll be doing some work on the cruise, but that's okay. We have a good internet package, and I get up early anyway. I'll sit with my computer on the balcony and do my reading and writing.

Today, work will be bugfuck, as people will be calling to reschedule appts, even though there's very little snow. We're opening at 8am for the sites, so that's a handful of people we're reschedule (since we start some tests at 6am.) And of course, a ton of "are you open" calls. People, we're Johns Hopkins. We don't close shy of blizzards.

Hopefully, there's some movement on the job application this week. Good lord, they're slow.

Okay, on that note, time for me to go forth and get myself ready for the day. Everyone have a wonderful Monday!

Job One: Remember that Computers Are Stupid

Job Two: bake Bob's favorite cookies to thank him for setting up my new laptop, and putting up with the occasional stupidity that's part of dealing with ones and zeroes.

We both knew it would take a couple of days, or even more than that, and I'm trying to be patient as he preps the new one (an Asus Vivo) so that we can download all my files from my slowly dying Lenovo, files that have been downloaded onto a delightful little red portable 2T hard drive.

That drive may will come in handy after the transfer, since I might need to keep it connected to my new laptop for a few weeks, or maybe months. My Lenovo has 1.82 T of storage, whilst my Asus only has 1T. We'll eventually see about getting a new, larger, drive in the Asus, but I don't foresee me using up the 1T of storage the Asus has. 

I've named the little hard drive Ada, and my new laptop is officially Alice-Alyx. It's the first time I've named a laptop, but it seemed the right thing to do with this one. I'm laughing a bit at myself, but hell, why not name some things that will help keep me happy for a good long time?

Now one of the remaining questions is whether Alice-Alyx will recognize my Samsung Galaxy ear buds. We tried to get them paired up yesterday, and the Asus laughed at us. Once again, I'm reminded that computers are stupid; they only do what we tell their ones and zeroes to do. 

In the non-computer part of the weekend, I was able to get in touch with a skiffy fannish acquaintance whose holiday card came back to me a bit ago. It turns out that he and his partner had indeed moved from the address I had for him, so I can send him something soon, and most definitely this coming holiday season. 

I also cleaned the bathroom, and sorted a small mountain of paperwork that had grown so high it was in danger of toppling over. I'm terrible at organizing and sorting, but I managed to do it today. I'm inordinately proud of myself. (I probably shouldn't be quite so loudly proud, because the universe will undoubtedly send something my way to punish me for such hubris. Heh.)

So that's my excitement for the weekend, and I am very happy that that's the most excitement I've had to deal with. Compared to this time last week, it's easy-peasy. 

I NEED TO MAKE A POST AAAAAAAA I constantly get stuck thinking of long posts and then they seem like too much work and I never do them!! I just have to do shorter ones and get them out there!! Bleaaghhhh

In stars-aligning type news, I've been doing a lot of good work on the next Vargas chapter! It was the Vargas anniversary like a week ago, which is one I constantly forget even though I usually try to keep track of this stuff. I had this really old meme I started in Flash ages ago I'd just found again, so I figured finishing that up would be something. So I did! I'd matched it to the source video so it's at a WAY higher framerate than usual, so Scri's little breakdance looks surprisingly smooth. It's also on Youtube if the Flash version isn't working for some reason. It should though, I have Ruffle set up so you can get the full experience! I used Swivel to convert it for Youtube which was so much easier than some other things I've had to do to get Flash videos into a workable format. I love the UI of Swivel, it's so dramatic and colorful and unique. I'm sick of the current minimalism trend in programs! Give me more elaborate UIs!

Oh right, Vargas chapter! Anyway, did a lot of good work the past few days smoothing out a lot of more tangled or awkward bits that had been bugging me for a while. I'm going to cut the chapter in half I think and just focus on getting this first part done and out. It's still like 20k so it's lengthy but it's more managable and it's at a good breaking point. It's been almost five years since the last update which is way too long lol. If I hadn't hurt my arm I'd be more on schedule! Or so I tell myself, anyway. I'd like to get it done before May... I'm mostly doing small adjustments with each pass now. I need to email my beta and see if she's still up for taking a look at it... god, 23 years, can you believe it? It's crazy to have characters 23 years old that still show up with some regularity that I still think about and write stuff for, haha. Even if there are long gaps, they're always going to be there. The number doesn't feel real to me at all. |D I wonder how many readers are younger than the fic itself at this point...?

It's still crazy to me how invested people get in the fic since it's so bizarre and long and complicated. It's so hard to pitch to people! And yet it seems to snag people and draw them in...

lj post

But I really want there to be/have been a Kathrine Pierce video to “Rid of Me”