Two and a half days to go in the work week. On the plus side, I found that I'm on Admin duties on Saturday, which just means scanning faxes and emails into the charts, which is nice. I won't have to take many calls, which will be much easier. First two days of actual work.

I have basically become concierge appt setter for this one person, and OMG, I dislike them so much. I called the other day, because the appt got cancelled because it wasnt' authorized. Now it's been authorized, and they seem to feel that we should be able to magically get them back in at the date and time they want. They're very fond of telling themself to take deep breaths, the implied reason being that otherwise they'll lose their shit at me. I'm going to call them one more time. but after that, it's over. If they don't want either of the slots I've got, they can get fucked.

My shit, of course, did not come yesterday. According to UPS, it got there too late. So I'll be doing laundry either later tonight, or first thing tomorrow. Ugh. I one hundred. percent understand that weather delays happen, but I want my stuff!

The rest of the stuff for the concert continues apace. I've got a bunch of bracelets, so we'll see if people will want them. There's a bit of a gatekeeping situation with Ghost. Some of the hardcore older fans think the new fans are goofy and "the reason no one takes Ghost seriously." It's like, my dude, the *band* doesn't take themselves seriously. They encourage the costumes and bead trading and all that. They're happy when their fans are having fun. And being a douchey gatekeeping asshole doesn't seem that fun. On the other hand, with my nuns veil and bracelets, I'm happy as hell. I'm hoping to get a little Mummy Dust, which is faux Satanic Pope dollars (so serious), but we're probably out of the section for it. So I will possibly get the batwing hoodie, and call it a day.

On the plus side, my boots fit. I've been wearing them around the house to break them in. Hopefully, it's enough that I don't get blisters, but we'll deal either way.

I've become a bit of a fan of Londontown Lakur nail polish. The colors are vivid and long lasting, and they go on super smooth. I'm waiting for my next one to come. IT's called around the chimney and it's darkest brown with red flicks of holo.

As you can tell, not much going on over here. I've updated my wardrobe a bit, went on a makeup binge, and now I prepare for concert.

And on that note, I'm going to go put on pants. Everyone have an outstanding Thursday!

I periodically fall down a rabbit hole of digging through web archives looking for ancient fanart. Today I was browsing the Team Artail art archive (my reuploaded DL link) and ended up looking up old users, websites, jumping through old Sonic webrings... the usual. Here's some of my favorite Espio arts from around 2005 ~ 2008 I found:

( Lots of Images! )

 

Ughhh, I got so much to say, maybe I'll post more old Sonic art and sites later. While there's a good amount of old web Sonic sites to browse through, there's still very minimal Espio / Chaotix fanart, but I'd still like to talk about them sometime!!

Oh, uh, did I mention I made a community for monkeyisland? I was a little surprised there wasn't a now-dead one hanging around from Ye Aulden Days of Dreamwidth of 2009-2010, since there was a fair amount of buzz in the fandom at that time about the release of Tales of Monkey Island and the special editions of Secret and Revenge. I actually had to submit a support ticket to be able to create it because the names monkeyisland, monkey_island, and all the variations with the underscore in silly spots (m_onkeyisland, etc.) were "reserved for administrative use" -- which turned out to mean "specifically blocked as account names because of some kind of prior problem with spambots"? I dunno who bothers to use the word "monkey" or "island" in such things, but whatever. (Maybe they meant those dang ugly-ape NFTs?) I don't know how long the block had been in effect although I would be surprised if it went as far back as ~2010.

Aaaanyhoo, I fear it will meet the same fate as weareloonies, where there were never more members than I could count on one hand, I was the only person who ever posted, and I spent a lot of time updating recs lists for no one, but for now I'm rowing the boat myself, as it were.

eta: I've come across an interesting portion of my keyword search of journal entries that might be related (click to embiggen):


There's a block of like 25 of these in this period of what would have to be late 2017 to early 2018 even what they fall in between, sorted by date. (Note that despite the quotes in the search term, Dreamwidth isn't actually using a phrase search; entries that contain the two words, but separated from one another, still turn up in the search. That meant a completely unmanageable number of results on LiveJournal, so I had to use a proxy search term and try to branch out from its hits by other means, but on Dreamwidth there's few enough that it's plausible to go through them all.)

Got an Apple TV trial, just in time to binge the whole Murderbot TV adaptation before the Friday finale.

(General note: The platform doesn’t have a watchlist? Just a “continue watching” list, which removes anything you finish — no saving a list of faves to rewatch! — and adds stuff it autoplays, whether you want to see more or not? Weird and unpleasant design choice.)

I like it! Plot-wise, it’s a very close adaptation of the first book, All Systems Red. Same overarching plot, a few things rearranged along the way. Character-wise…a bunch of things have been shifted around. Everyone is recognizable as a version of their original self, but. If you’re already a book fan, the question of “will you like the TV series?” may hinge on “when they changed Character X, did they keep or discard the traits you were most invested in?”

General, no-spoilers overview:

Some of the changes are obvious “doing it this way worked better on-screen” things. Scenes that were just-MB in the book become group efforts, giving the PresAux actors more to do. Plot points that were just inner-monologue realizations in the book are delivered in conversations instead.

I mostly like them! Even with the characters, even a few dramatic personality shifts — look, I’ll be mad if some of them start bleeding into book!fandom, and fans stop writing the original versions of the characters. But as a standalone AU, most of them work really well.

The few changes I actively don’t like are all “why did you even add this, what was the point?” kind of things. No huge dealbreakers. Just some low-key annoyances.

There are a few particular exchanges from the book that you really have to get right to make a satisfying adaptation. They’ve all landed. And a bunch of the comedy moments have been had-to-stop-the-episode-while-I-cracked-up funny.

The biggest advantage of doing Murderbot on TV is, The Rise And Fall Of Sanctuary Moon is also TV. Which means the showrunners can film Actual 100% Authentic Sanctuary Moon Footage, and cut to it while MB is watching. It’s ridiculous and amazing.

Detailed reaction, with spoilers:

( yeah, this is an AU variant of Book!MB, not a portrayal of Book!MB )

Hi did you miss these?

Just finished: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. I ended up enjoying the shit out of this. Murder mystery/political palace intrigue set in a world where eldritch abominations threaten to break through the seawall and destroy entire cities every wet season, and magic is done through bioengineering. The brilliant Sherlock Holmes analogue is a mysterious and terrifying elderly woman and the Watson analogue is a dyslexic disaster bisexual kid who's been altered so that he remembers everything he experiences. It's very fun.

Currently reading: Bread and Stone by Allan Weiss. Look at me I'm reading CanLit! It's about the Winnipeg General Strike, though, so it's not off-brand for me. In the first section, William, a failure of a farm boy, goes off to the Great War against his family's wishes. It's immaculately researched; you get every detail of small town Alberta and the culture shock of moving to the big city of...1914 Calgary. William's father is a coal miner who describes in passionate terms the solidarity that comes from joining a union, but doesn't want his son to go down into the mines himself, so Williams seeks it first in the church, and then amongst his unit. I've gotten to the bit where he's finally being shipped out for France. Quite good so far.

Happy Wednesday! I'm very scattered this week. I've got the concert on Saturday, and that's where my attention really is. I'm getting through the day, but it's not easy. Saturday morning is going to be really bad. Especially if it's busy like last week. But money is money is money.

Adding to the overall vibe of the week, my article came out on the Johns Hopkins Radiology internal site. It was really well written and looked nice. I'm not going to attach it, since it was the internal site, though I will put a screencap of the blurb, but it really talked me up and I feel like I came off really well. My boss poked me to let me know that they sent it out to the entirety of radiology leadership throughout the health system, and that it was "Quite the email thread," of people I'd helped singing my praises, and them saying they were going to forward it to other employees to use me as the standard, and proof that we make a difference. If nothing else, the email was sent to our team via the big boss, Peg, who apparently now knows my name and face. (It had a picture I provided.) It was kind of a lot to take in.



After that, I struggled through my 8 hours, and then logged off to make more bracelets for the show. My boots actually did come, and are perfect. They're pretty comfortable right off the bat, and look fabulous. I'm going to wear them a couple of hours a day until the concert so they'll be comfy. They're just your standard shit kicker combat boots, but they'll look great with the fishnet leggings and outfit. Tonight, after the leggings come, I may do a full makeup fit check, just to make sure I'm good for the show. If so, I'll post pictures.

Tomorrow, we have a few more things coming, but nothing for the concert. Jess' hair dye is coming today, so that should be awesome. I think we're going to do it tomorrow, since they have a therapy appointment this afternoon and we have a game tonight.

After this concert, I'm going to have such an adrenaline let down. It's been so much fun to get ready, and I've really enjoyed being involved in the chats for the specific venues.

Okay, time to go forth and get myself ready for work. Everyone have an awesome Wednesday! We're halfway there!

Terrible idea: book character who sees time as “slices” adjacent to each other in two dimensions, and can do things like drop an object from one “slice” to make it fall from the sky in another. See how long it takes the reader to realize the character perceives comic-book panels.

I donated to Wikipedia just now because I don't think I can make a significant donation to any usual sites right now. I have a con next month on my birthday, so I'm setting paycheck money aside for that.

This had the wrong proportions to work as part of the preview image for 'Severance' leads Science Fiction/Fantasy Series but could lose to 'Andor' at the Super Awards .

In the cabin, Jane was growing tired of waiting for rescue. She paused in her umpteenth defense of Daria and looked at the approaching storm.

“Storm, so what?” Kalina said.

“It’s just the sort of thing SpiderGirl or the fourth vigilante could use as cover in a rescue attempt,” Jane answered.

“Are you sure?” Kalina asked.

“Yes, I have met SpiderGirl,” Jane said.

Oliver spoke up. “This is a lot different to stopping muggers, stopping that Green Goblin and rescuing kittens from trees.”

“That’s true,” Jane said. “But I don’t doubt that she could do it, despite Quentin’s illusions.”


“They’re now talking about possible rescue,” SpiderGirl said as rain started to fall.

“I’d say that’s as good as invitation as any,” Ninja Talon said.

“Another minute.”


The Enigma and Dafoanairi felt the rain as it began to fall. “We’re almost there,” The Enigma said.

“We might get soaked, but it will be worth it,” Dafoanairi said.

Lightning streaked across the sky and the thunder soon followed.

( Read More )

Good lord, between my brain just refusing to shut off last night, and my cat, I feel like I got almost no sleep. I'm okay, just very tired. But it's okay, we shall deal. I don't have anything exciting scheduled for today. I'm just going to get through work, and then I shall be tired and maybe let Jess cook.

I got a bag from Ipsy last night. It's been fun, playing with makeup. I don't know how what I got is going to be in regular rotation, but it's cool. I found a couple of things last night that I picked up, including one last eye shadow palette. It's reds and blacks and silvers, which caught my eye. I'll give them a go and see how they look. This is possibly my cheapest palette, so we'll see what the quality is. If it looks pretty, I could use it for Ghost on Saturday. If not, oh well.

I cannot wait for the rest of my stuff to come in. Tomorrow, Jess' hair dye comes in. They're going to go darkest blue, which should look super cool.

I have an appt on 8/8 to get mine dyed again. I go professional, since most of my hair is grey, which takes dye differently. I wish she'd had something before then, but I just couldn't work it. I'm going like a dark blood red color. Not quite something you can say is unnatural, since redheads exist, but right on the line.

Torrid order #1 comes today, supposedly. When I looked this morning, the last tracking was in Kentucky, so I'm dubious. It would be really helpful if this one came today, but we'll see.

Yesterday, Jess' BPAL order came (in record time). We had so many smellies to go through. I liked a lot of them, especially the ones from the Gourmand imp pack. I do love my food scents. The Incense imp pack was less successful, though Cathedral was nice. My absolute favorite was a freebie they sent along. Scherezade. which lists itself as being red musk, Middle Eastern Spices and Saffron has an amazing scent, and I really love it. It's been on my wrist for almost an hour and has yet to go powdery, which, with my skin composition is fucking amazing. TweedleDee and Knave of Hearts are also really pretty, though I haven't tried them to see if they work on me. Knave of Hearts was a surprise, since I don't normally like rose perfume. But those currant tarts definitely shine in it.

We took Yoda to the vet yesterday. He of course, behaved like a little angel for the vet. The absolute only thing he took exception to was being lifted down after the checkup, when he shrieked in a little piss-baby tantrum. Oh, he also had a tantrum in the waiting area, because I would not let him go meet dogs. (He generally doesn't like dogs, but get him at the vet or the groomer and he's all about going to meet everyone.) It went fine, but was generally stressful, and I'm glad we don't have to do it again for a year.

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

Title: Father Christmas' fake beard
Author: Terry Pratchett
Language: English
Type: children's novellas
Genre: humour

1st release: 1968-89, collected 2017
Publisher: Doubleday
Length: 11 novellas, 175 pages total



(i think i got this one from the import bookstore?)

11 novellas, more or less about Christmas folklore, or at least midwinter shenanigans

Most of it was funny, yeah: it's pTerry.
Some ideas were later reused on the Disc?
But it was a younger pTerry, and for younger readers, so it's not as polished as the Disc.

And personally I'm not very fond of Christmas folklore so it wasn't *hilarious* to me.

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